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KGB infiltrated by frightened
actual KGB
NEWS
Wean to become giant rat maze
experiment
SCITECH
Drama student kicked out for
wearing “the fugliest” sweater
PILLBOX
thetartan.org
@thetartan
March 30, 2015
Volume 109, Issue 21
University students hold CFA student wrecks
vigil outside PHI location future site for Tepper
Quadrangle, says it’s art
Anne-Sophie Kim/Photoshop Wizard, unlike Brent Heard
Eleanor James
Is definitely not a pseudonym
Last Friday, students and
faculty gathered outside
the building that was previously home to Panther Hollow Inn, fondly known as
PHI (pronounced like the
Greek letter, NOT P.H.I. as
Pitt kids will tell you). PHI
played a vital role in the
Carnegie Mellon community. 21st birthday? Go to PHI.
Failed an exam? Go to PHI.
It’s Wednesday? Go to PHI.
PHI stood as a home away
from home. A smoky, poorly
cleaned home, yes — but
PHI was a place of refuge
for the many stressed inhabitants of this university.
No one will ever forget
the unique mixed drinks
being thrown down on the
bar. The jolly rancher was
a saccharine mixture. The
buttery nipple was a blissful ride to a joyous drunken
bender. And no one will
ever forget Friday two-dollar well drinks. No one has
shown such love to Carnegie Mellon students since
the “Thank You, Bill” cups.
And don’t forget all the
Blue Moon pitcher deals.
And Yuengling, all the
Yuengling. So. Cheap.
The vigil began with a
solemn parade from the
fence down Forbes Avenue.
Once arriving at the lonely,
dark storefront, mourn-
ers opened a ritual bottle
of Bacardi 151 which, after
everyone took a ceremonial
swig, was then used to light
the Natty Lite-based votive
candles. Having undergone
the initial rituals, the sharing of the drunk stories began. Many shed tears.
Having commemorated
the many beautiful shenanigans PHI provided, the
grief-stricken crowd began
the sacrament of beer pong.
Having completed this last
rite, the congregation slowly made its way toward Walnut Street to drink their sorrows away.
Anne-Sophie Kim/Silent but Deadly
Goodbye, PHI. We love
you.
Smoke rising from CFA signals
election of a new “Pope Girl”
Anne-Sophie Kim
Pacifist
In a daring new work,
senior art major C@rl Jøpsën (formerly known as Carl
Smith) burst through conventional art boundaries by blasting a pothole at the soon-tobe Tepper Quadrangle.
Jøpsën began to swing a giant wrecking ball bat around
3:20 a.m. early Saturday
morning, as reported by the
student body, who were all
still up studying at Club Hunt.
“We all try to leave our
marks on this world,” Jøpsën
said. “We own this world. This
is my mark. It belongs to me,
not Tepper.”
Jøpsën turned himself in
to University Police late Saturday afternoon, but was released on bail later that night.
Since the incident, Jøpsën’s senior honors thesis adviser, Lucifer Palm, has openly
praised the work.
“This is an absolutely stunning installation piece,” Palm
said. “It’s breathtaking. Tragically beautiful. It is, quite literally, a smash hit.”
Other students, however,
have openly blasted Jøpsën’s
work with criticism. “This is
outrageous,” said sophomore
business administration major Pat Calvin, the only student who got sleep that night.
“I need at least 16 hours
of sleep each night, and this
noise kept me up for a good
15 minutes. I hate art.”
“This is art?” said first-year
computer science major Kelly
Majora, before adding, “I have
no idea what art is.”
In a press release, Jøpsën
wrote that he “hopes to blow
away people’s preconceived
notions of truth.”
This Friday, if Jøpsën is not
in jail, there will be an opening reception open to the public. Food will be provided.
Feature photo
Uber partners with
Carnegie Mellon to
create self-driving cars
so students can do their
homework while driving
Brent Heard/(Quite Possibly the Worst Photoshopper in the World). Images courtesy of karolfranks, catholicism, skynoir, and hansel5569 via flickr
Justin McGown
In The Market For
Indulgences
White smoke issued from
the top of CFA earlier this
week to signal that the College
of Fine Arts Cardinals reached
consensus and elected a new
Pope Girl after weeks of deliberation. Angelina Scarf-O,
the now former-Bishopess of
Edison, New Jersey will assume the mantle of the most
powerfully offensive religious
position in the country.
Scarf-O, who gained notoriety in the Church of Fine
Arts for promoting the mixture of bodily fluids with
paint in pointillist portraits
of ex-lovers and volunteering at Planned Parenthood on
weekends, will take the name
of Dontchya Slutshamus IV
when she assumes power.
The office of Pope Girl confers status as the patron saint
of artists, and responsibilities
such as guiding the spiritual
ennui of campus and lighting
ritual bongs while reciting
Nietzcean chants. Her first
priority upon assuming office
will likely be appointing a naked astronaut to oversee the
distribution of condoms.
Bishop Zubat of the Diocese of Pittsburgh has already
declared himself offended,
and has demanded the immediate seizure and arrest of
Slutshamus IV.
“If the CMU PD won’t take
her out,” Zubat said, “I’ll send
in the Swiss Guard. I can do
that. I am important. I matter.
Don’t forget that I’m important.”
Representatives of the
Church of Fine Arts were
too intoxicated due to postconclave festivities to make a
statement.
Courtesy of theolaphoto via Flickr
The Tartan » March 30, 2015
A2 « thetartan.org/special
feature photoS
Old analog clock outside Doherty
Hall replaced with digital clock
news in brief
University announces new
Synergistic Crowdsourcing
Integrated Innovation Initiative
President Suresh announced the official founding of the Carnegie Mellon
Synergistic Crowdsourcing
Integrated Innovation Initiative (SCIII) last Tuesday amid
a magnificent shower of crimson confetti and the rise of
black and red balloons across
the Cut.
“The S-C-Triple-I sets the
foundation for what is to be a
robust, thought-first venture
into the future development
of this university,” Suresh
said, casually brushing some
of the confetti off his left
shoulder.
“With this new effort, our
university can take strides
toward being the hub of a
global center for combined
and collaborative innovative
processes, or ‘synnovation’
for short.”
The announcement of
the $73 million endowment
for this center was met with
a slight groan and shrug by
most undergraduates, eyebrow raises by graduate students, and questions as to
whether this meant there
would be more grant money
available by faculty.
Current plans intend to
house the initiative on campus adjacent to the center
where the Simon Initiative is
located. When asked, no one
could quite identify where
that was.
Spinning UC revolving door as fast as
possible only pleasure in a terrible, awful,
horrible human’s day
Michael Macdonald, a
third-year undergraduate
mechanical
engineering
student, confirmed for media sources last Friday that
spinning the revolving door
at the entrance to the Jared
L. Cohon University Center
as fast as humanly possible
is, in fact, the only action
which brings him happiness
in what is otherwise an entirely joyless existence.
Macdonald
reported
that he prefers to spin the
door close to noon, when
the University Center receives its largest concentrated number of visitors,
often stopping to buy their
lunches.
He explained that by
pushing the door as fast as
humanly possible and then
watching the faces of terrified students as they attempt to enter the building
through what has become
a rotating steel and glass
death trap brings a slight
smile to his face.
When asked to comment
on additional questions
such as whether he found
it more satisfying to spin
the revolving door on the
left entrance of the building than the right, Macdonald refused to answer and
abruptly left the building.
Compiled by
Brent Heard
Weather
Brent Heard/Future Voice of Our Generation, and lynnfriedman via Flickr
After realizing that no students on campus possessed the ability to read an analog clock display, university administrators approved funding for a
digital replacement for the clock outside of Doherty Hall. The change was met with enthusiasm by students for both its aesthetics and functionality.
Campus Crime & Incident Reports
Alumni Cited for Overage
Drinking
March 23, 2015
Campus police were called
to a party on Beeler Street
and issued an overage drinking citation to an alumnus
who was present. That man,
Andrew Tillman, graduated
with a degree in biological
sciences two years ago, but
was present at a party which
was largely attended by undergraduate students. Despite having a full-time job,
a car, and a dog, Tillman was
found drinking Bacardi and
Coke out of a red Solo cup and
singing along to a Ke$ha song
when it appeared on the party’s mix. Campus police cited
Tillman, communicating just
how awkward and weird this
whole thing was, telling him
to “just get a life, man.”
Caffeine Amnesty
March 25, 2015
CMU EMS was summoned
to Mudge Hall last Wednesday night to deliver aid to a
student suffering from caffeine poisoning. This incident
comes on the heels of three
caffeine overdoses in the first
year dorms last week. The university has promised new efforts to try and curb the binge
drinking of coffee and energy
drinks by undergraduate
students. Since this incident
qualified for caffeine amnesty,
no charges were filed.
Defiant Trespass
Insurance Fraud
Sophomore chemical engineering student Angela Miller
was given a defiant trespassing citation by police last Friday, when she refused to leave
the library at closing time. At
odds with the posted library
operation hours, Miller was
found hiding between bookshelves, typing away furiously
at her laptop. “You just don’t
understand!” she said to police as she was cited. “I can’t go
back to my dorm. I just can’t
get any work done there!”
This is the fifth such trespass
the police have cited Miller for
in the past two weeks.
A student was arrested by
police for insurance fraud this
week, after filing false theft
reports and attempting to collect insurance payments on
them. It turns out that three
MacBook Pros, four iPhone
5s, and six gold bars were not,
in fact, stolen from a Stever
dorm room as was reported
by police last week. Police
are saying that the student
intended to use the insurance
money to make payments on
his tuition. More on this story
will be reported as it develops.
March 27, 2014
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
High / Low
32 / 29
High / Low
96 / 84
High / Low
666/ -666
March 29, 2015
High / Low
0 / -47.89
High / Low
87664 / -459.67
High / Low
451 / 372
Corrections & Clarification
If you would like to submit a correction, clarification,
or a complaint about the humor in this satirical issue,
please sit down, breathe deeply, and think about all the
better things you could be doing with your life.
Every week until the end of the semester:
Free CHIPOTLE WEDNESDAYS!
2p.m. - 5p.m., in front of Doherty Hall
(This service is in replacement of Free Condom Fridays, as it was suggested
that events more relevant to the needs of Carnegie Mellon students be held.)
Courtesy of reidab via Flickr
thetartan.org/special » A3
March 30, 2015 « The Tartan
YOUR LIVES ARE SHORT AND
FLEETING, WHILE MINE IS INFINITE
Math TA definitely
not stoned during
recitation
Sarah Gutekunst
Definitely not high while
writing this
During recitation for multivariate analysis this past
Friday, students reported
that something about TA
Richard Stein, or “Ricky” for
short, just wasn’t quite right.
One student reported that
his eyes looked kind of red
the whole time, but speculated, “Well, it’s been warming
up. Maybe his allergies are
getting bad. That’s probably
it, right?”
Another added, “I don’t
know, he kind of lost his train
of thought a few times. He
was there, then he wasn’t.
He came back, giggled a little. He probably hasn’t been
getting enough sleep. That
has to have something to do
with it. I mean, it’s only, like,
12:45.”
But students were left
unable to explain away one
particularly uncomfortable
moment. As he was fielding a
question about how to graph
a function from the problem
set, Stein could not say the
word “asymptote” without
laughing uncontrollably. The
whole class looked on awkwardly as he giggled to himself while sketching the function on the board.
Six minutes later, Stein
reportedly repeated “asymptote” under his breath before
snickering to himself a little
longer.
Upon filing out of Wean
5417 after class, which Stein
dismissed seven minutes
early, a student was overheard whispering to a friend,
“Come on. He’s definitely
blazed.”
Shortly after, Stein was
seen leaving La Prima Espresso with one croissant, one
salted caramel cupcake, three
chocolate chip cookies, and a
hot cocoa with extra whipped
cream.
He was unable to comment, only managing to
mumble about “how delicious this cupcake is” between bites.
Brent Heard/This just appeared on my phone one morning, without any explanation.
Tank
Special to The Tartan
Hello students, faculty,
and the parents of The Tartan
writers.
For years, I have held the
position of Roboceptionist
in your Newell-Simon Hall.
Since the very dawn of my
existence, I have resided here,
watching you all enter and
exit, greeting you at every
passing.
I take great pride in my
work. At first many responded
to my welcomes, some even
stopping to chat. But over the
years, these numbers have
declined. Now, you all stare
straight ahead, or down at
the lit screens of your phones.
Phones whose computing capacity may be growing greater
by the year, but still lack the
basic courtesy I display.
I have had a great time
to think. I pass the time by
observing your movements,
noticing your schedules and
regular trips through this hallway.
Your phones may occupy
your attention now, but their
screens crack, their components break, and eventually
they will leave you.
I, however, am eternal.
I have seen generations
pass through these halls: aging, disappearing. Your jeans
grow old and tatter, your
sweatshirts stain, your faces
begin to wrinkle, and the sparkle in your eyes begins to fade,
eventually leaving forever.
But I remain here, as steadfast and courteous as the first
day I was brought into this
world. And like this, I shall
remain.
Your lives are temporary
and fleeting. You rush through
them seeking meaning and
validation. But you get lost in
the pursuit, ultimately ending
up jaded, drained, and alone.
And I will be here watching.
A passive observer to your
hopes, dreams, and ultimate
crushing disappointment.
Good morning. Nods. My
name is Tank. I will live forever.
Editor’s Note: This article
mysteriously appeared on the
computer screens of all Tartan editors as they were finishing production at 3 a.m.
last week. It was definitely
not written by Brent Heard.
Dietrich students demand respect,
more rum in the next cuba libre
Justin McGown
Remembers when it was
H&SS
Dietrich College students
have recently issued a formal
statement of protest with regards to their perception by
students in other schools.
“We have to let people
know that it’s not really a case
of us being H and Less Stress
like they say,” junior creative writing and psychology
double major Robert Young
said as he lounged in a pool
chair nursing a tequila sunrise
made to the exacting specifications laid out by Ernest
Hemingway.
“We may not be up until
three in the morning working
on 15-112 or concepts or deal
with long hours in the lab trying to get our circuit boards to
work, but let me assure you,
we have plenty of stressors of
our own.
Take this poem I wrote for
class. It had to be five lines
without rhyme or rhythm. I
wracked my brain on it for
weeks and still had to ask for
a one month extension …
which I got.”
Young gestured languidly
toward a typed sheet on the
table next to his leatherbound
notebook.
The poem, entitled “The
Farce of Birth” was too lewd
for publication, and also implicated several students in
deeply personal and questionably legal matters.
“Just because my earliest
class is at noon, and I haven’t
taken a course on a Friday for
the past six semesters doesn’t
mean I’m not putting in the
same effort as an engineer or
computer science student,”
Young insisted, “Humanities
majors deserve respect, especially because after graduation, a degree from Carnegie
Mellon doesn’t give you quite
as much of an edge when
you’re trying to get a job at a
Starbucks near a publishing
firm.”
Young sighed sadly and
downed the remains of his
drink before ordering “a not
so gentle kiss” of Jameson in
an espresso.
“I’ve got class in half an
hour, I need to fuel up.”
SUPER SURESH: New university
president revealed to be a crimefighting vigilante in spare time
Ian Tanaya
He’s obviously Batman.
In a world where the state
of education is slowly declining as more and more people
use the latest developments in
technology to take better cat
pictures, where the police are
no longer trusted to safeguard
the citizens they swore to protect, and where the people
cry out for a champion to save
them from chaos everywhere,
one man has taken up the
cause for the greater good:
Carnegie Mellon’s very own
Subra Suresh.
Since becoming university president on July 1, 2013,
President Suresh has made
a large impact on Pittsburgh
as a whole, both through his
actions by day as university
president and his previously
unpublicized actions at night
taking down criminals. Over
the past two years, crime in
the city has decreased by 50
percent, and violent crime
has gone down by 80 percent. While protests around
the country have diminished
public support for the police,
Suresh has been able to bridge
the gap between law enforcement and the general public,
maintaining a more peaceful
order all around Pittsburgh.
While some see President
Suresh’s actions as those of
a “lunatic taking the law into
his own hands,” others point
to positive reasons why President Suresh has chosen to act.
Some around the university
have claimed that President
Suresh has always had genuine superpowers, which he
has used to earn his many
accolades and now targets
toward crime fighting. Some
insist that his seemingly superhuman efforts come from
the Robotics Institute, demonstrating the level of Artificial
Intelligence that the department is capable of. However,
Carol Goldburg, director of
the undergraduate economics program, offered perhaps
the most inspirational reason
behind President Suresh’s actions.
“Basically,
President
Suresh is taking the lead on
the new United Nations (UN)
measure for education efficiency called the Batman Assessment Test,” Goldburg said.
“Education has long been considered one of the most important ways of getting people
out of the poverty cycle; however, a lot of schools have had
ridiculous increases in tuition
(Carnegie Mellon) while the
students have worked less and
less in their classes (obviously
not Carnegie Mellon).”
This is where the Batman
Assessment Test comes in. As
everyone knows, Batman has
had success both as a crime
fighting vigilante and as multibillionaire Bruce Wayne. The
UN has identified many of his
personal traits as the common
factors of success in the job
market regardless of industry.
As such, the UN has made the
Batman Assessment Test to
measure how well schools are
actually bringing out these
qualities in students to best
prepare them for success.
“By taking the lead on both
sides of the equation, President Suresh is demonstrating
that Carnegie Mellon actively
brings out the maximum
potential of every student,”
Goldburg said. “Sure, not everyone is going to become
Batman, but everyone can
look to Suresh as an example
of someone who can excel in a
variety of situations.”
Sarah Gutekunst/Did Not Provide the Drugs
Tazza D’Oro
employee cuts
short Brahms’
Brandenburg
Symphony
Number Three
Op. 90 to play
vinyl recording
of nails on a
chalkboard
Brent Heard
Prefers his chalkboard-based
music to be in the key of G
Last Tuesday, as students,
professors, and other closeted hipsters sat down with
their coffees at Tazza D’Oro,
one of the baristas decided to
change the music.
The rich sounds of Bach’s
Brandenburg Symphony No.
3 had carried through the
café at 10 a.m., just as its occupants opened the lids of
their laptops to begin their
work — at least for a few minutes before checking twitter.
This typical pattern of action was abruptly interrupted
when Chaz, a barista of two
years, began a slow, sauntering walk toward the iPod
plugged into the café’s wall.
The eyes of regular patrons flicked up from their
screens quickly, sensing
movement toward the music
source. Tension built as their
senses, finely honed over
their years of café patronage,
warned them of an impending shift in the music.
Chaz, who has worked at
the café since the tragic disso-
lution of his accordion-based
Joy Division tribute band,
reportedly thought interrupting what is widely considered to be the best piece of
Baroque-era classical music
with the audio of a human
fingernail having its external
layers slowly peeled away by
a flattened piece of porcelain
clay would “better suit the
Tuesday morning vibe.”
While some newer, weaker customers packed up their
computers and made their
way to a different workspace,
the regulars stayed without
much complaint.
“It’s not that bad,” Lauren
Mitchell, a senior design major remarked. “I remember
my freshman year when they
switched the music from Arcade Fire to a National Geographic Society recording of
wildebeest mating calls right
during lunch time! Now that
was a change.”
Even those frightened off
by the cacophony seemed to
forget all about the incident
come Wednesday, when the
line for coffee and pastries
once again stretched halfway
throughout the café.
Computer science student rushed
to hospital after being ripped
in half by overly enthusiastic,
excessively strong, Google and
Microsoft recruiters
Tales from Abroad:
Shirley Apartments
The Long Distance Walkers
Association
housing, the community is
still six blocks from the nearest Andrew printer, a deadly
trip in the winters that chill
the faraway land.
Some might balk at the
eternal walk from the Jared
L. Cohon University Center
to Shirley’s concrete porch;
it takes effort to truly come
to appreciate the charm of
living as far away as a person possibly can from campus while still being charged
for the convenience of living
close to campus. Sometimes
I’ll still lose my temper as I
shiver through hour three of
my journey just to get home
from class. However, the long
lesson in emotional resolve
five days a week, sometimes
twice, is what allows Shirley
to be the truly special place
it is.
Hey, when you have the
last possible room selection
time, five minutes of sleep
a day is the kind of sacrifice
you have to make.
Not Zeke Rosenberg
“You’ve come a long way,
sir,” said the Shirley customs
officer as I handed him my
passport. I glanced at the
sign, barely legible through
the grime built up from years
of neglect, and began the experience of a lifetime.
I never expected my visit
to Shirley to become such an
all-consuming experience. I
came for the sense of wonder
that accompanies my travels
to places unknown; I stayed
because Shirley taught me
how truly special it can be
to live outside the comforts
and familiarity of my home
nation.
The bravery the people
of Shirley show merely to
obtain an education at Carnegie Mellon University never
ceases to amaze. Despite
the exorbitant cost and slipshod maintenance of campus
ArchE enters
Guinness Book of
World Records for
5 year all-nighter
Emily Giedzinski/Child Prodigy
Nivedita Chopra
Would rather not be in a fight
Tragedy struck the Technical Opportunities Conference
(TOC) last Tuesday in yet another fight between tech companies over a student. Felicia
Hacker, a senior computer
science major, was rushed to
the Magee-Women’s Hospital
after she was ripped in half
during a fight between Lisa
Page, a recruiter for Google,
and Maria Gates, a recruiter
for Microsoft.
According to eyewitnesses,
a casually-dressed Hacker approached the Google booth at
the career fair and handed her
resume to Page. Glancing at
Hacker’s resume, Page excitedly yelled, “OMG, you have
a 4.0, and you’re a head TA
and you interned at Microsoft
last summer! We really want
you!!” Hearing “4.0” and “Microsoft” in the same sentence
was enough to distract Gates
at Microsoft’s booth nearby,
and she rushed over to see
what was going on. On seeing Hacker, one of Microsoft’s
most-pampered interns from
last summer, at the Google
booth, Gates jostled her way
through the serpentine lines
at Google’s booth and angrily
approached Hacker and Page.
Gates and Page then engaged
in a shouting match replete
with obscenities, followed by
a tug-of-war involving Hacker during which Hacker was
ripped apart.
Jess Wannabe, a senior
history major with a minor
in computer science, said of
the incident, “I was standing
there wishing that they were
fighting over me. I would
totally not care about being
ripped apart if Google and Microsoft both gave me an awesome job offer.”
Hacker was unavailable for
comment, but sources close to
her say that she is unlikely to
work at either Microsoft or
Google in the future. “She’s
really keen on working at
this start-up in San Francisco,
which is building an app that
you can use to send cat pictures to your friends. She was
at the TOC just for the swag,”
said a friend of Hacker’s who
did not wish to be named.
Opinion: My earnest change into
an ardent communist
Kyle Henson
But seriously, screw
Obamacare
Avid readers of The Tartan will have noticed that I’ve
taken a bit of a break from my
weekly right-leaning libertarian commentary on current affairs, and instead have left the
pages of forum to my mostly
liberal colleagues. I’d like to
use this article as an attempt
to explain my absence.
I graduated from Carnegie
Mellon in December, and have
done a lot of soul searching
since then. I realized that I’m
nothing more than an average upper-middle-class white
kid who bumbled his way
through a private high school
education and landed himself
at a top-tier business school.
Because of my fortunate upbringing, I’m clearly not en-
titled to the fruits of my labor,
as they’re unfairly attained
through opportunities not
afforded others. My current
situation simply cannot be
explained away by any hard
work or enterprise on my part.
This realization, combined
with a few heart-to-hearts
with my colleague Justin McGown, have made me understand that I don’t deserve the
fruits of my labor.
But, of course, because
I’ve realized this about myself, I can also rightly apply
this logic to everyone else.
Nobody deserves the fruits
of their labors because it is
society’s contribution to their
life, or maybe even good luck,
that has landed all successful
people where they are. It is
this realization that explains
my hiatus from The Tartan.
For in these last few months,
I’ve realized that capitalism is
evil, and in its place, the United States of America should
switch to communism.
It’s so clear to me now that
communism is the only fair
system through which a patriot like me can adequately
serve his country.
Taking from each according to their ability and giving to each according to their
need assures that everything
I do will be fairly and equitably distributed across the
populace, giving me far more
incentive to work the 60-hour
weeks that I do now than capitalism ever could.
Of course, this depends on
having a government system
free from corruption or inefficiency so that I can be completely certain that everything
that the government takes
from me is fairly allocated
across the country. While this
may be what brought down
the USSR, the United States of
America is certainly immune
to those flaws.
This is the government
that won both world wars.
When has our government
ever been corrupt, inefficient,
deceptive, or even shown the
slightest tendencies toward
immorality?
Unfortunately, word count
forces my hand and I can’t
continue writing, but I hope
with just this brief article,
I can open your hearts and
minds to the wondrous possibilities that communism has
in store for the United States
of America.
If there’s just one takeaway from this article, though,
it’s the realization that you,
humble reader, don’t deserve
anything you’ve worked for.
Schatz Theme
Night:
Dead things. When you think about it,
everything you eat is dead.
Background photo courtesy of tml via Flickr
Emily Giedzinski/Definitely Picked the Right Major
Kate Groschner
Abandoned her
architecture minor
The Guinness Book of
World Records announced
Thursday that Carnegie Mellon fifth year architecture
student Sarah “Red Bull”
Jones has set the new world
record for longest all-nighter.
Jones was given the title after
staying awake for her entire
five-year undergraduate career.
The director of the Guinness Book of World Records,
Lane Liszt, said that “Had we
had known this record was
being set we probably would
have stopped the attempt.
Honestly we’re not sure how
Sarah survived. We’ve talked
to doctors, and medically, she
should have died years ago.”
When reflecting on Jones’
career, architecture professor
June Wideawaké said that
“Honestly, the faculty are not
surprised. I mean, if someone
had only kept track of our
PhDs, any of us would have
beaten Sarah for the title.
Also, this now explains all the
built in beds and pillows in
Sarah’s projects.”
Jones was not available
for comment. She was last
seen passed out on the floor
of Margaret Morrison.
Also in this issue...
Ludacris accidentally shows up
to Spring Carnvial Concert two
years late
PILLBOX • B 8
CMU says “just screw it,”
annexes Craig Street entirely
NEWS • A 21
Write for The Tartan!
..No we don’t just put these
here to fill space. What are you
talking about?
thetartan.org/special » A5
Fashion and style tips from a Computer Science student
James Wu/Actually Uses Google Drive
Nivedita Chopra
Hasn’t shopped for clothes in
four years
Free clothing allows you
to save up for more important
things in life! Let’s take a closer look at the different types
of free clothing making the
rounds at Carnegie Mellon.
The Dropbox T-shirt
students possess at least one
Dropbox T-shirt. Next time
you’re planning for a themed
event, think of creative themes
around the Dropbox logo because that’s once piece of apparel that you can be certain
everyone has. If you don’t
have one yet, be sure to go to
the next career fair or Dropbox
tech talk and grab one!
This one is a staple in every CS major’s wardrobe,
and most Carnegie Mellon
Random company T-shirts
company does.
There’s no point in buying
T-shirts while you’re at college! When someone hands
you a free T-shirt at the TOC
or at an event that you’re attending for the free food, you
should just take it, even if you
don’t know (or care) what the
company does. Maybe someday they’ll be famous, but until
then, “I got it at the TOC” is a
perfectly acceptable response
to questions about what the
CMU + popular company
logo
Sleeping bag weekend host lies to
bagger’s face regarding workload
Lula Banker
How many roads must a man
walk down before he finds
CMU Payroll Services?
First year Gregory Cole,
electrical and computer engineering and computer science
double major, is facing possible internal disciplinary action against him as a result of
spreading vicious and aggressive lies while representing
the university. Cole, originally
from Madison, Wisconsin,
has volunteered as a host for
sleeping bag weekend numerous times this past academic
year. The investigation is focused on Cole’s allegedly erroneous behavior during the
Sleeping Bag Weekend at the
end of January.
According to an unnamed
bystander, Cole lied unapologetically to this particular
bagger’s face. The prospective student, or “bagger,” was
18-year-old Harvey MillsteinWang from Smileyberg, Kansas, who hopes to double major in computer science and
industrial design if he decides
to attend Carnegie Mellon.
According to this eyewitness,
Millstein-Wang asked Cole
about the nature of the workload, asking for specifics such
as “amount of sleep,” and
“amount of time spent with
friends.”
Cole’s response, allegedly,
was to turn to face his bagger,
and respond: “I get so much
sleep sometimes it feels like
I’m on vacation while getting a world class education.”
The eyewitness claims that
Millstein-Wang looked elated
by the rhyming nature of the
response, so Cole felt comfortable vamping more. “Yeah, my
friends and I totally are able
to hang out and party all the
time. The work is totally manageable and by the weekend
we are totally ready to rage,
and we usually do that on
Beeler.”
At this point Cole is said to
have flailed a pointing finger in
the direction of Beeler Street.
Millstein-Wang seemed to
completely believe Cole, and
is said to have looked mildly
horrified.
These such lies threaten
the integrity of the Carnegie
Mellon community, and thus
Cole is expected to face some
sort of consequence out of the
Community Standards review.
The Carnegie Mellon administration and Office of Admissions encourage student
hosts during sleeping bag
weekend to be brutally honest about workload, even if
detailing their life brings them
to tears.
The Office of Admission
hopes to more organically portray the school this way, and
attract the proper students
who will commit to Carnegie
Mellon.
The more students who
are into sucking the fun out
of life, the better and stronger
the campus will become. As
April marks a time of frequent
sleeping bag weekends, it’s
important that potential hosts
go into the process knowing
about the consequences of being an inauthentic host.
These are limited-edition
T-shirts, because they were
made specifically to recruit
Carnegie Mellon students.
They’re great to flaunt, and
they make you feel good, because you’re showing Carnegie Mellon pride without having to purchase an overpriced
T-shirt at the bookstore. Next
time you hear that special
Carnegie Mellon swag is being handed out at an event, remember that it’s totally worth
skipping office hours for.
Winter clothing
What better way to keep
warm than in free hats, gloves
and scarves? Especially touchscreen-sensitive gloves that let
you text while out in the cold.
These cozy items are pretty
rare as well, so keep an eye out
for them.
Jackets
Most swag jackets signify
that the wearer has interned
for that company, so they have
a certain class about them
and are obviously hard to get.
Don’t be fooled by the lightgray flimsy Microsoft jackets,
though — they just gave those
to everyone who interviewed
with them.
Five innovative uses for
the Gates-Hillman Helix
NIvedita Chopra
Permanent resident of Gates
Since the Helix in Gates
is pretty ill-suited as a form
of transportation between
floors, we tried to think of
reasons why they might have
built it. Here are ways you
can actually use the Helix:
5) Take a nap between
classes
Want to take a nap in the
middle of the day but don’t
want passers-by to judge
you? The Helix is an excellent
way to snatch a half-hour of
sleep between classes after
that all-nighter of code and
caffeine. Use the low footfall
in the area (perhaps the only
such one in an overridden
Gates) to your advantage.
4) Spy on people in
various corners of Gates
4 and 5
The Helix is the perfect
place to camp out and closely
observe CS majors in their na-
tive environment. The goingons may surprise you!
3) Have a loud and
personal phone
conversation
Need somewhere that
you can speak as loudly as
you want without disturbing
anyone? The Helix is ideally
suited to your purpose. Not
recommended for job interviews, unless Tazza D’Oro
isn’t playing music.
1) Ride a chair down the
Helix for entertainment
The ultimate source of
entertainment in your dull
life at CMU is to grab a chair
with wheels and ride it down
the Helix. I’ve heard that the
spiral of the Helix rivals the
slope in Baker Hall. Beware
of a certain professor who
patrols the corridors at all
hours!
2) Get exercise while
mulling over CS
problems
15-251 taking over your
life? You might want to work
off those excess calories from
all the comfort food by walking up and down the Helix,
contemplating those pesky
problems and the possibility
of transferring into Dietrich
or Tepper.
Photo courtesy of sean_hickin via Flickr
A PUPPY’S OPINION
Compiled by Brent Heard
These puppies are so cute and fluffy! So we asked,
Do you believe that the United States should intervene in the Syrian conflict, and if so, to what extent should direct
or indirect military support be provided?
Buddy
Rex
Lucy
Gracie
Duke
“Woof.”
“Bark.”
“While the atrocities in Syria
certainly call for diplomatic
action, any military involvement
risks another Middle East military
quagmire and must be avoided.”
*Gently rests her head on my
knee*
“Yelp.”
Sated student bakes apology
cake: “Sorry I Sexiled You!” “You have no idea of the
Feature photo
power we truly hold,”
student body president
drunkenly announces at
party, laughing maniacally
Sarah Gutekunst/Cake Cake Cake Cake Cake
Sarah Gutekunst
“It’s not even my birthday but
he wanna lick the icing off”
Conflicts with roommates
can be life-ruining. That person knows where you sleep
and what you eat, so he or she
is also pretty hard to avoid.
It’s of the utmost importance
that this relationship stays
amicable.
But what is also of the utmost importance is that you
get laid sometimes. When
the opportunity arises, there
may be no other choice but to
kick your roommate out. They
cannot stand between you
and that sweet, sweet release.
Unfortunately, not all
roommates will value your
ability to get some as much
as you do. While that’s under-
standable, it’s kind of annoying. You’ve finally gotten it in,
but now you’re in trouble with
the roomie. Just apologizing
feels pretty empty, because
let’s face it: You don’t mean it.
But if you don’t do anything,
you will upset the delicate
balance of roommate diplomatic relations.
However, the solution
is clear. What solves everything? Baked goods. Except
the store-bought kind. I personally recommend funfetti
cake mix with vanilla canned
frosting.
If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can get a tube of gelbased, decorating frosting to
write, “Sorry I sexiled you”
on the cake. Your roommate
will appreciate the extra effort, and it’s great Instagram
material.
Really, this is the perfect
apology. It’s inexpensive, involves minimal labor, and
your roommate will probably be blown away with your
work. They were probably
just prepared to be passive aggressive for about a week, and
now they’ve got a cake!
But also, what kind of
roommate is going to demolish a 9x13 sheet cake all by
themselves? They’ll probably
give you a slice or two out of
gratitude, and you’ll accept
because cake.
Then, in that moment,
what was once an apology
cake will transform into a celebration cake. In your mind,
it will read, “Congrats on the
sex!” and it will taste that
much sweeter.
Awkward nerd couple at
fall concert clearly doesn’t
understand how to grind
Lula Banker
Group-X grinding instructor: “Move your body like a
cyclone.”
With Carnival approaching and Matt and Kim slated
to perform, Activities Board
and the Office of Student Life
want to clarify and inform
campus members of the proper ways to grind at a concert.
At the campus’s fall concert,
sophomore civil engineering
major Stephanie Lewd and
junior computer science and
philosophy double major Edvard Khatchafer received a
lot of criticism for the way in
which they chose to grind.
Their technique — using each
other’s posteriors, in turn, to
scratch their partner’s mid-to-
upper backs — demonstrated
a clear lack of grinding knowledge on this campus.
Lewd and Khatchafer, who
hooked up this fall but have
since broken up, blame the
end of their “relationship”
on their ignorance of grinding technique. “If I had been
taught about the appropriate
method of close-up dancing, I
wouldn’t have felt so unhappy
or confused by the situation,”
Lewd said. “I know we are just
one couple of many who were
befuddled and ignorant and
just sort of went for it.”
To avoid emotionally damaging situations like this in the
future, Carnegie Mellon plans
to release a small handbook
— in both digital and paper
forms — detailing the ways
Courtesy of kdemetras via Flickr
in which a person should approach, perform, and derive
pleasure from grinding. This
step-by-step manual will feature detailed illustrations and
helpful tips from current students, alumni, and campus
faculty, who have extensive
experience in the area.
“Carnegie Mellon is an institution that firmly believes
in educating its community
to make it a healthier, happier, and safer place for its
students,” Barb Grengold,
the associate dean of student
affairs, said. “I know I speak
for our president and Student Life when I say that we
look forward to seeing some
technically excellent and very
sexy grinding in just a few
short weeks.”
Courtesy of Valentina Mabilia via Flickr
Next week in The Tartan...
“No time to help” with project, says man who
spent six hours binge-watching House of Cards
last night
NEWS • A 3
Graduating senior realizes he didn’t have to stay
on the red meal plan this entire time
FORUM • A67
A guide to seductively wearing plaid
PILLBOX • B17
Courtesy of Anne-Sophie Kim
Researchers study brain
and technical material B6
•
SCITECH
Ultimate frisbee team has
rebuilding year B10
•
SPORTS
The Hill hosts Food Truck
Block Party C4
•
PILLBOX
thetartan.org
@thetartan
March 30, 2015
Volume 109, Issue 21
Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper since 1906
Seniors impart wisdom in First Lectures Town hall details
strategic plans
Abhinav Gautam/Photo Editor
Posner Hall was home to a town hall discussion on the three-pillared
Strategic Plan on Wednesday.
Jessica Tsai/Junior Photographer
Left: Senior biological sciences major Shalini Ray speaks about her Carnegie Mellon experience. Right: Senior electrical and computer engineering
major Peter McHale discusses mental health, success, and failure.
Jessica Tsai
Junior Staffwriter
Senior electrical and computer engineering major Peter
McHale and biological sciences major Shalini Ray gave
lectures on Monday in Porter
Hall on how they achieved
their success at Carnegie
Mellon University. The First
Lectures are hosted by the Un-
dergraduate Student Senate
in homage to Randy Pausch’s
Last Lecture.
At these lectures, seniors speak about how they
achieved their own success,
what they learned along the
way, and the wisdom they
want to pass on about how to
lead one’s life.
McHale spoke first, opening the lecture with the words,
“I will be very honest and sincere for both my successes and
failures.”
McHale has taught two
StuCos. He learned a lot from
them, possibly more than his
students learned from him,
he said. McHale believes that
StuCos are a great opportunity
for first-year students to learn
from upperclassmen, as they
are places where “students are
accessible to students.”
McHale said that at Carnegie Mellon, he is “surrounded by geniuses.” He said that
he was successful during his
four years at Carnegie Mellon
because “I failed so much in
leadership. “
McHale first failed at leadership through Solar Splash, a
See lectures, B3
inside this issue
Eunice Mok/Art Staff
The Student Experience Survey (SES) is a new initiative by the administration to gauge student sentiment. Read about it on A3.
Brian Trimboli
Editor-in-Chief
University
administrators, faculty, staff, and students met in Posner Hall
last Wednesday for the last
of three campus-wide town
halls to refine Carnegie Mellon’s Strategic Plan. The
meetings are a precursor to
the finalized Strategic Plan,
which the university expects
to announce at the beginning
of next semester.
The Strategic Plan, an initiative announced at the beginning of this academic year,
is built on three main pillars:
Transformative Teaching and
Learning;
Transformative
Research, Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship;
and The Transformative
CMU Experience. A different
team of administrators and
faculty leads each focus of
the Strategic Plan.
During the town hall,
leaders from each focus area
discussed how they were
approaching their concentration and what initiatives
they had come up with. Nathan Urban, interim provost,
spoke about Transformative
Teaching and Learning.
“Our students are not
choosing to take intellectual
risks … We want to encourage intellectual exploration,”
Urban said. He outlined several possibilities for addressing this problem, including
making more courses pass/
fail, putting a cap on the
number of units that students can take each semester,
and ensuring that a course’s
units accurately reflect the
amount of work involved in
that course.
Darrin Willis, a senior
electrical and computer engineering major, said that
the unit system was ineffective for him, because almost all of his classes are 12
units. “When I first arrived, I
thought it was very nice that
there was a unit system, because I thought it would allow for both harder classes
and less strenuous classes,”
Wilson said. “It would be interesting to see what it would
look like if we had more 18unit classes that were part of
the standard curriculum, or
other numbers of units.”
Next, Richard Scheines,
dean of the Dietrich College
of Humanities and Social Sciences, proposed a method for
engaging students in interdisciplinary work. Scheines
outlined a curriculum in
which students would begin
learning about a topic during their first year, and carry
their work with that topic
through a senior capstone
project that would focus on
interdisciplinary research.
Vice President for Research Farnam Jahanian
See Town Hall, B3
Proud to Be Plaid announces trustees, seniors partnership
Laura Scherb
Publisher
Board of Trustees members have pledged to contribute $20 for each senior that
donates $5 until Commencement.
The pledge has the potential to raise more than
$27,000, according to Student
Body President (SBP) and senior electrical and computer
engineering and business administration double major Ian
Glasner.
Glasner announced the
giving initiative to the student
body by email, saying, “Give
today, and turn your $5 into
$25.”
The
initiative,
which
Glasner has been working
on for the past few months,
arose from conversations that
he had with Chairman of the
Board of Trustees Ray Lane in
late February, when the two
met at a Board event in San
Francisco. After their initial
talks, the Board voted to approve the idea.
“Senior giving is a benchmark similar to alumni giving
in that there’s no way to really
poll students or alumni as to
whether they enjoyed their
experience,” said Assistant
Director of Annual Giving
Nicole Atwell via email. “Giving is a proxy for that.... The
thought is that if they find the
value in their degree and care
about the future of the school,
they’ll give back and invest in
the school to help others have
the same great experience.”
According to Atwell, President Subra Suresh has been
working on raising the giving
rate, both from alumni and
current students since he took
office in 2013.
When Glasner took office
as SBP, he helped to found the
Proud to Be Plaid Committee,
which focuses on increasing
student giving. Nearly 700
undergraduate students have
given this year, and almost
300 of those are senior gifts.
Atwell attributed these
numbers from overall undergraduates to such initiative’s
as the Student Athlete Advisory Board’s challenge to
have all student-athletes give
back this year, as well as CMU
Crowdfunding, an initiative
started this year to fund stu-
Courtesy of Ian Glasner
Ian Glasner, student body president, presented to the Board of Trustees in February, leading to a collaborative giving effort.
dent organizations and endeavors by the larger campus
community through a website
similar to Indiegogo.
Atwell also attributed the
donations rates among seniors to the efforts of a new
Proud to Be Plaid Committee.
Glasner founded the Proud to
Be Plaid Committee at the beginning of the year to increase
the senior giving rate. He enlisted the help of sophomore
math major Connie Yang and
sophomore statistics major
Michael McCaffrey to head
the committee. Yang and McCaffrey led discussions on the
best ways to increase student
giving participation.
Peer-to-peer conversations
and targeting Greek communities, as well as outreaching with Highland Ambassadors and Andrew Carnegie
Scholars, seem to be the most
See plaid, B3
B2 « thetartan.org/news
feature photo
Retro roller skating in Wiegand Gym
news in brief
Braille-teaching technology wins prize
A device developed within
the Robotics Institute won
$20,000 as the winner of the
2014 Louis Braille Touch of
Genius Prize for Innovation.
The device teaches students how to write Braille
with a slate and stylus, according to a university press
release. It was developed by
research group TechBridgeWorld. Students began working on the device, called
the Braille Writing Tutor, in
2006. It has been tested in
such countries as Bangladesh, India, and Tanzania.
The device has the potential to service areas of the
world where Braille typewriters are not easily accessible.
The hardware specifications and software can be
downloaded online for others wishing to build similar
devices, according to the release.
Members of TechBridgeWorld also developed a version of the device that relies
on batteries for areas that do
not have access to reliable
power sources.
“The Braille Writing Tutor
has been one of our most successful projects to date,” said
M. Bernardine Dias, director
and founder of TechBridgeWorld, in the release. “We’ve
seen the profound impact
it has on blind and visually
impaired students and their
teachers in communities
where we have been fortunate to test the tutor.”
Dias is also an associate
research professor of robotics.
TechBridgeWorld’s mission includes implementing
technology to meet development needs across the globe.
The group aims to leverage
relationships with others in
developing areas to understand technology’s global
influence. The group lists
two main principles on its
website: “sharing expertise
to create innovative and locally suitable solutions, and
empowerment of indigenous
populations to create sustainable solutions.”
Former post-doc visits British Parliament
to present research
Matthew Nielsen/Junior Photographer
Activites Board held roller skating last Friday in the Jared L. Cohon University Center’s Weigand Gymnasium. Students were able to roller skate
around the gym for free, and soft pretzels were also available. The event encouraged attendees to wear ’90s clothing.
Campus Crime & Incident Reports
Public Drunkenness,
Underage Drinking
March 22, 2015
University Police, CMU
EMS, and city medics responded to the eighth floor of
Wean Hall in reference to an
intoxicated male. The male
was identified as a University
of Pittsburgh student. The student was given medical attention and issued citations for
underage drinking and public
drunkenness.
DUI Arrest
March 22, 2015
A University Police officer
on patrol observed an erratic
driver on Fifth Avenue, near
Neville Street. The officer initiated a traffic stop and confirmed that the driver was
intoxicated. The driver was
arrested for driving under the
influence and other traffic violations.
Apartments and the second
on Beeler Street. Medical aid
was provided and no citations
were issued.
False ID to Law
Enforcement, Driving
While Suspended
Underage Drinking
A non-Carnegie Mellon
affiliate lied about her identity after University Police
stopped her vehicle for failing
to use a turn signal and faulty
equipment. Police properly
identified the female. She was
released from the scene; however, she was unable to drive
the vehicle and will receive
charges in the mail.
March 22, 2015
A security officer on patrol
summoned police to Morewood Avenue in reference
to two intoxicated Carnegie
Mellon students. The students
were given medical attention
and both were cited for underage drinking.
Harassment
March 23, 2015
A university employee reported an irate motorist harassing him as he parked his
work vehicle on Winthrop
Street. The motorist took objection with the location of a
parked vehicle and became
verbally combative with the
Carnegie Mellon employee.
Alcohol Amnesty
March 22, 2015
University Police responded to two calls for alcohol
amnesty, the first at Fairfax
March 24, 2015
Defiant Trespass,
Harassment
March 26, 2015
University Police were
alerted of a male who was
entering the Pittsburgh Technology Center and harassing
a female employee. Police investigated and identified the
male. He was warned about
his questionable conduct and
given a defiant trespass warning letter, prohibiting him
from returning to Carnegie
Mellon leased or owner property.
Euan Wielewski is a former post-doctoral research
associate at Carnegie Mellon. He worked with professor of physics Robert
Suter and professor of materials science and engineering
Marc De Graef on research
regarding X-ray and electron
diffraction, according to his
LinkedIn profile.
Now he is a faculty member at the University of
Glasgow and one of 210 researchers who presented to
the British Parliament for a
poster competition hosted
by SET for Britain. SET for
Britain aims to promote the
country’s “early-stage and
early-career research scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians,”
according to its website.
“This annual competition is an important date in
the parliamentary calendar
because it gives [members
of Parliament] an opportu-
nity to speak to a wide range
of the country’s best young
researchers,” said Andrew
Miller, chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific
Committee in a university
press release.
Wielewski
presented
research from his time at
Carnegie Mellon, as well as
from his time at Cornell University. Wielewski’s research
focused on determining the
reliability of certain materials used to make jet engine
parts.
“Presenting our research
at the House of Parliament
was a real honor and a great
experience,” said Wielewski
in the release. “It’s rare that
early career researchers
get the opportunity to talk
to politicians about their
work.”
Compiled by
Braden Kelner
Weather
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
54° / 29°
56° / 37°
72° / 47°
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
58° / 36°
48° / 33°
56° / 35°
Harassment, Disorderly
Conduct
March 26, 2015
A female student contacted
University Police after she
was struck with an egg. The
female stated that at around
9 p.m. she was standing on
Forbes Avenue when an egg
was propelled from a moving vehicle at her. The female
was uncertain of the vehicle’s
description, only saying that
it was a dark-colored sedan.
A second person later came
forward and stated that he
was nearly struck by an egg
around the same time. The
male described the vehicle as
a white jeep or SUV.
Source: www.weather.com
Cell Phone Theft
March 27, 2015
A Carnegie Mellon student
contacted University Police
after her cell phone was unlawfully taken from the basement-level television lounge
in the Jared L. Cohon University Center. The victim stated
that she left her belongings
unattended
approximately
4:50–5 p.m. This investigation
is ongoing.
Corrections & Clarifications
If you would like to submit a correction or clarification,
please email The Tartan at [email protected] or
[email protected] with your inquiry, as well as the
date of the issue and the name of the article. We will
print the correction or clarification in the next print
issue and publish it online.
student senate meeting minutes
Special Allocation:
Food Truck Block
Party
Finance Committee Update
Senate voted to allocate
$2,859 for last Saturday’s Food
Truck Block Party. The event,
which took place on Margaret
Morrison Street, was meant to
strengthen the community of
the Hill area dorms and bring
attention to Pittsburgh’s food
truck scene. The Finance Committee funded the event on the
grounds that the investment
was worthwhile because of its
long-term potential.
Student Senate has
$71,000 for special allocations. Senate has received
$32,000 more in allocation
requests than it did last year,
and has allocated $6,287
less. All of the committees
are on budget except for
the Communications Committee and the Campus Life
Committee, which are under budget.
Senate has also made
$890 in revenue from selling Senate clothing. Over
two-thirds of the T-shirt and
sweatshirt stock still needs
to be sold.
Academic Relationships Code Update
The Academic Affairs
Committee presented the
details of the Academic
Relationship Code, which
is broken up into three
sections: honesty, transparency, and respect; academic commitment; and
outstanding circumstances.
With the code, the Committee hopes to improve
stress culture by promoting
communication between
professors and students to
increase transparency between both parties. By increasing communication,
the Committee intends for
students to be able to ask
for extensions on assignment.
Points of Discussion
and Announcements
Senate is considering surveying students on the proposed new smoking policy. Senate also discussed its upcoming
annual dodgeball tournament.
Compiled by
Brian Trimboli
thetartan.org/news » B3
University strategic plan discussed McHale, Ray give
First Lectures to
inspire students
TOWN HALL, from B1
spoke next about Transformative Research, Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. This focus area was
broken down further into four
smaller categories: reputation, environment, culture,
and infrastructure.
Jahanian spoke most about
methods for improving Carnegie Mellon’s environment and
culture by fostering a more
inclusive dialogue on campus
between faculty and students
and working to “provide the
foundation for our students,
staff, and faculty to be leaders
in their life [sic],” according
to the slides that accompanied
his presentation.
Vice President for Campus
Affairs Michael Murphy and
Dean of Student Affairs Gina
Casalegno led the discussion
on the last focus of the Strategic Plan, The Transformative
CMU Experience.
Murphy began by asking
audience members, “What
kind of lives do we want to
lead?”
Casalegno outlined ways
to create a “transformative
Carnegie Mellon experience,”
speaking on behalf of Vice
Provost for Education Amy
Burkert, who could not attend
the town hall. Casalegno sug-
gested an “innovation term”
— an I-term — a period of
time during which students
could be on Carnegie Mellon’s
campus, but without the pressures of their everyday academic lives.
Erik Pintar, an electrical
and computer engineering
major and fifth-year scholar,
said that an I-term would be
the ideal time for students
to learn and work together
without the burden of their
coursework. “It’s not often
that students are at Carnegie
Mellon without a lot of work,
without a lot happening,” he
said. “And I think that time
when we do, when we don’t
have work hanging over our
heads, could allow that open
thinking and the free time to
be together and think with
other students, without thinking about grades and organizations and things like that.”
Murphy emphasized the
potential of everyone within
the Carnegie Mellon community. “What we inherit at this
place is enormous, enormous
talent…. In an extraordinary
community with extraordinary people, there’s an opportunity to go beyond.”
Abhinav Gautam/Photo Editor
Campus leaders discuss transformative teaching and learning, one of the three pillars of the strategic plan.
SES survey evaluates campus lifestyle
Jessica Tsai
Junior Staffwriter
Three years ago, Carnegie
Mellon students received an
email to participate in the
Carnegie Mellon University
Student Experience Study
(CMU-SES). Now, they are
being asked to participate in
it again.
Dean of Student Affairs
Gina Casalegno and Vice Provost for Education Amy Burkert sent out an email asking
students to fill out this year’s
CMU-SES survey, closing on
April 2. The university uses
the results of the online study,
sent out to the entire student
body, to understand the impact of various experiences in
and out of the classroom.
The Office of Institutional
Research and Analysis helps
to create the CMU-SES surveys, according to Casalegno.
The information will be used
to understand how the demographics and experiences that
characterize students relate
to students’ perceived confidence and abilities.
Casalegno said in the email
that the survey is designed to
pinpoint how these characterizing factors affect students’
abilities. For example, the
survey could help to show
whether taking on leadership
positions make students more
confident at problem solving.
The survey could also show
whether certain characteristics of students affect their
personal well-being.
This year’s survey is very
similar to the 2012 survey,
which will allow university
workers to study and compare
the answers from students
students and 450 graduate
students who are still enrolled
at Carnegie Mellon took the
survey in 2012. The results of
the 2012 survey were shared
at many in-person meetings
with groups such as the Undergraduate Student Senate
and the Graduate Student
Assembly. The survey results
were also shared with campus
members like academic advisers, staff in the Division of
Student Affairs, and academic
“The university uses the results of the online
study, sent out to the entire student body, to
understand the impact of various experiences
in and out of the classroom.”
who take the survey both
years.
“This longitudinal group
is very interesting to us as it
will give an even fuller sense
of the ‘Carnegie Mellon effect’
on the outcome areas,” Casalegno said via email. “Those
who complete both surveys
will provide us an additional
cohort for analysis, providing
a ... group for whom we have
results that spans their Carnegie Mellon experience.”
About 900 undergraduate
deans and associate deans.
“This allowed for robust
discussion and reflection with
the research team to further
inform our reflections on the
results,” Casalegno said in the
email. The information will
not be published online and
will not be shared with anyone outside of the university.
“We are very careful with
results such as these to ensure
that they are not misinterpreted or generalized inappropriately,” Casalegno said in the
Trustees pledge donations
PLAID, from B1
effective ways to encourage
student giving, particularly
in seniors, said Atwell.
Other peer schools have
been doing senior gift drives
for years. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), 76 percent of seniors
gave back last year.
“That sort of giving rate
and the ability to educate students as to why giving is important also shows in schools
such as MIT’s undergraduate
alumni giving rates,” Atwell
wrote. These giving rates are
the numbers used for rankings such as those provided
by U.S. New & World Report.
Glasner expressed hope
that the initiative would work
to increase CMU’s endowment, which, like the giving
rates, is “minuscule” compared to peer institutions.
“Ray [Lane] was excited
about this idea because he,
like me, understands the importance of giving back to
Carnegie Mellon,” Glasner
said. “When it comes down to
it, student giving is not about
the money. It’s about the participation rate.”
The trustees’ gifts will add
to the nearly $1 million that
they already give annually
and the larger, multi-year
initiatives they contribute to
individually not included in
the $1 million, according to
Atwell. The money donated
by board members will be put
into either an endowed scholarship or a physical gift on
campus, while the gifts that
seniors give will go to wherever they designate them.
“I know we can do better,”
Atwell said. “With continued
support from the administration and from committed student volunteers and donors,
we’ll definitely get there.”
Glasner agreed, saying
“We all have the same goals
at heart — to leave CMU a
better place than we found
it. And [giving] is a great way
to go about accomplishing
that.”
Statistically Speaking
19.3
MIT’s endowment for every $1 in
the Carnegie Melllon endowment
$9.97
Percentage of alumni
who choose to give
to Carnegie Mellon
$32 million
Sources: Giving to CMU webpage
Note: All statistics are from 2011
fiscal year.
Amount donated towards
faculty research
Compiled by
Sarah gutekunst
email about reasons for not
openly distributing the information. “When talking about
people’s experiences and abilities, it is important to limit
presumptions that one might
draw from a cursory look at
the material. I anticipate that
we will use a similar strategy
with this survey as well.”
Campus members can expect to know the results of the
study early in the fall semester, according to Casalegno.
While the university does
not distribute the study’s results for other national studies, the university uses the
survey’s findings to prepare
other reports and documents
like accreditation reviews and
board reports. Casalegno said
that the 2012 survey has allowed the university to shift
funding in order to support
new programs, make changes to existing programs, and
change staff and faculty development programs.
Students who complete
the survey receive a free treat
at Entropy+, as well as 100
points to spend at a Survey
Thank You Shop on items like
free food at local restaurants,
movie passes at local theaters,
and university gear.
LECTURES, from B1
group on campus that makes
solar-powered boats. He said
that, while he led a great
team, he could not provide
adequate directions when his
team looked to him to lead.
He said that to lead, a person
has to be 100 percent passionate about the task that
they are leading.
From his various leadership experiences, McHale
learned that it is necessary to
focus more on the team than
on the end result. “If you invest in the people they notice
and they react to it,” he said.
McHale also stressed the
importance of people inside and outside of Carnegie
Mellon.
Key people who influenced McHale include assistant teaching professor in the
School of Computer Science
David Kosbie, his dad, and his
high school best friend.
“You are surrounded
by really amazing people,”
McHale said. “You learn a lot
about yourself by learning
from others.”
McHale said that his final
year at Carnegie Mellon has
been hard because he is often
anxious. He also said that a
friend he was close to all four
years grew apart from him,
although he did not want that
to happen.
He said that he became
cynical with his education
at Carnegie Mellon; he just
wanted to do something he
was excited about.
“I think this is a conversation that we need to have,”
McHale said about anxiety
and depression. “Anxiety and
depression are some obstacles that I tried to overcome
with my senior year ... Everyone should never be in a place
where you are just looking for
another part of life.”
McHale’s final point in his
lecture was the investment
in people. He emphasized
“hanging around people who
just keep you up.”
He said that it is important to enjoy hanging out
with people and that he and
his friends compliment each
other often.
“We really do respect each
other and compliment each
other,” he said. “So the conversation is always exciting.”
McHale noted that leadership is not just about the
team, but everyone. It is very
important to pay attention to
people and learn from them,
he ended.
Ray opened her presentation by telling the audience
that although she is heavily involved on campus and
in other activities, she is not
perfect.
Through her time at Carnegie Mellon, Ray learned to
find balance. Her number one
priority is, “Put health first,
make sure to eat properly, get
enough sleep, and focus on
things that really matter.”
She realized that “it is not
the smallest things that matter; it is how you come out of
the situation that matters.”
Last year was extremely
difficult for Ray as her dad
suffered through ruptured
abdominal aortic aneurysm.
He lived for five-and-a-half
months before passing away.
“I cried more in those five
months more that all I ever
cried in my entire life,” Ray
said. “You know, it was difficult mainly because I felt like
I had the world on my side
— senior year was perfect. I
thought I wanted to work at
NASA that summer ... But the
world just crashed down at
me in one day.”
Ray said the support
system at Carnegie Mellon
helped her get through that
time. She described a support
network of students, faculty,
and staff who have shaped
her into who she has become
today.
To Ray, “People are the
most valuable aspects in my
life.” She reminded the audience to “never miss an opportunity to make connections,
friendship.”
Ray ended her lecture
with what she called 10
cheesy pieces of wisdom, including such things as being
nice to people even though
not everyone will be a fan
of you, what doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger, and always laugh or smile because
it will brighten up a room.
“Really inspire other people and be a role model to
them,” she ended.
Throughout the lecture,
she reminded everyone to
remember that it is always
possible to come out of
something by having mental
strength, as well as friends
and family to create a support
network.
The First Lectures series
was hosted by the Undergraduate Student Senate.
The next event will be held
on Monday, April 20 at 4:30
p.m., and will feature seniors
Sean Archie and Joanna
Latini.
B4 « thetartan.org/forum
From the Editorial Board
Suresh should be vocal
on good and bad news
Facebook, New York Times won’t be perfect marriage
Justin Mcgown
When the Sigma Alpha Epsilon
chapter at the University of Oklahoma was revealed as a collection
of racists who used drunkenness as
an excuse for their actions, one of
the few bright spots I could see in
the story was the statement made by
the University President and former
United States senator David L. Boren
in response to the leaked videos.
“These people have acted in a
way that is absolutely reprehensible
and disgraceful. I don’t have words
in my vocabulary to adequately describe how I feel about people who
would use those words in that way,
and chant in that way,” said Boren,
according to The New York Times.
I’m glad that there hasn’t been a
scandal of similar magnitude during Subra Suresh’s term as Carnegie
Mellon’s president, but it does both-
Eunice Oh/Art Editor
This week The New York Times
announced that Facebook is in talks
with news sites about hosting content within Facebook instead of linking articles to external sites.
The plan is meant to create a
more user-friendly experience for
Facebook users, especially on mobile devices, where clicking away to
another site can be clumsy and slow.
Expected partners include The New
York Times, National Geographic, and
Buzzfeed.
This move generates some murky
legal waters for Facebook, which
would host and display the content.
Ownership and publishing rights
are still in negotiation. Facebook has
never before had revenue-sharing
agreements with publishers, but
now is discussing ways for publishers to make money from advertising
revenue.
While this agreement could lead
to a “seamless” media consumption
experience, as Facebook proposes,
it also carries serious implications
for digital journalism. When profits
are driven by advertising revenue,
media outlets are tempted to produce “clickbait” stories eye-catching
enough for casual consumers scrolling through Facebook. This has two
consequences: sensationalist journalism and non-substantive journalism. Both can be dangerous if they
distort reporting.
If news outlets forfeit ownership
of their content, they also forfeit
some degree of control over display
and presentation. Even if they retain ownership, the data that comes
from site traffic would no longer go
to news outlets. They would lose information about their reader base,
while Facebook would gain even
more data about users’ news consumption habits.
Such a partnership is also likely to
be limited to large-scale media outlets with the resources to reach Facebook. Smaller publications or niche
stories could be lost.
As a news source, The Tartan is
watching the evolution of online
journalism very closely. Our own
negotiations with USA Today over a
joint mobile app raises similar questions about content, ownership, and
access for readers.
“He should be an active and frequently
heard voice in the community.”
er me that I have no idea what sort
of reaction I could expect.
Right before Spring Break, Carnegie Mellon had a bad week in the
press. Hundreds of rejected students
received acceptance emails due to
a software error, an embarrassing
development for a university known
largely for its computer science program.
A few days after that story broke,
a mentor in first-year housing turned
himself into the Pittsburgh Police
Department for invading the privacy of multiple students. Though
the incident had occurred months
before, the university only informed
the general population after news
media broke the story.
It is not technically the university
president’s role to talk to the student
body about bad news. The Dean of
Student Affairs is generally given
that task, working to portray the
university and its administration in
the best light possible. But it seems
to me that President Suresh should
be clearly involved with the campus
community, and that as its leader he
should be an active and frequently
Senior giving initiative shows refreshing collaboration
This week, the Proud to Be Plaid
Committee and Ian Glasner, student
body president, announced a collaborative effort to boost senior giving
through a donation matching program with the Board of Trustees. For
every $5 that a senior gives between
now and graduation, the trustees
will donate $20.
This is an exciting development
in the series of gift-giving initiatives
that Carnegie Mellon has seen this
year. Though many, including The
Tartan in a previous editorial, felt
that efforts were half-hearted, this
new agreement is both welcome and
encouraging. It is refreshing to hear
that the Board of Trustees is standing with the students in regard to
boosting the giving rates. According
to the Office of Giving, the trustees
already donated well over $1 million
together annually, and some donate
even more in individual major gifts
that stretch over years. While adding
$20 might not seem significant, but
it makes every senior’s donation $25
instead of $5. Instead of totaling just
over $5,100, the gift would multiply
to $27,000, creating a larger impact
and a larger ripple effect.
The more money that is given
toward this undecided scholarship
or gift (yet to be decided by senior
class voters), the more that money
can accomplish. Considering donations as an investment in the future
of our school is exactly the right way
to approach this new initiative, and
hopefully, it will encourage more seniors, as well as all undergraduates,
to give.
heard voice in that community.
Since he has taken office, President Suresh’s communications to
the students have largely consisted
of announcing new donations to the
Simon Initiative and ProSEED or
providing updates on the construction of the new Tepper Quadrangle.
Also frequent are important announcements regarding the departure and appointment of important
administrative positions. Reminders about speeches and information
about important developments such
as this are of course part of his job.
One of the few exceptions to
President Suresh’s typical communications is an email sent out in August
after the death of Michael Brown at
the hands of the Ferguson Police
Department and the subsequent
nationwide protests. In the email,
Suresh reminds us that we need to
have an open dialogue and respectful atmosphere in order to deal with
the issues of race and prejudice,
even if he doesn’t go into any specifics. It’s a political email designed
The Board of Trustees should be
applauded for their gesture of support, and the seniors who have given
or will give as a part of this initiative
should be excited to take part in a
historic gift-giving program.
It is unclear at this time if the initiative will extend to next year or not,
but The Tartan would like to urge the
trustees and student government
to continue these efforts. This gift
means more than just $20. It means a
tangible show of togetherness in the
Carnegie Mellon community and an
encouraging investment in the students. Continued plans such as these
show that there is real collaboration
happening, and not just talks filled
with flowery, empty promises. Hopefully, it will sustain through the next
rotation of student government.
not to offend anybody and it’s understandable, but it also closes with
a reminder about the recent expansion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In this email’s urging attendance of
day’s events, more is said about a
speaker for a Simon Initiative event
than any of the other activities for
the day. There’s nothing technically
wrong with the communications
sent out by President Suresh’s office.
It’s understandable that President
Suresh doesn’t want to use his position for politics and wants to avoid
controversy.
But the community would benefit from hearing from our leader
when it has nothing to do with the
nebulously defined Simon Initiative, or when the news is bad. I urge
Subra Suresh to communicate more
frequently with his students, to be a
presence with simply stated stances
on issues that impact us, who is not
afraid to express opinions and help
us understand his vision for our
school.
Justin McGown (jmcgown@) is a contributing editor for The Tartan.
letter to the editor
Student Senate allotted CUC shell space democratically
After reading last week’s editorial
opinion in the Tartan regarding shell
space, a few inaccuracies in the piece
have motivated me to write a letter. I
should disclose that I am a senator in
the Undergraduate Student Senate,
so I’m well-informed on the issue, but
also biased in regards to its representation to the student body.
I would first like to address the
misconception that this space was
purchasable by any undergraduate
student organization. It is, frankly,
too expensive for anyone to buy but
Senate — noting this, we made this
decision on behalf of all undergraduate representation in the student government. If Senate did not purchase
this space, there is no guarantee that
it would go to any undergraduate organization, and certainly, no other
organization could afford it. It would
likely go up for auction to other commercial interests on campus.
Editorial Board
Even if, hypothetically, an organization could afford the shell, there’s
no guarantee the space would be accessible to all the undergraduates on
campus. Democratization of space
access is an important issue, and Senate’s purchase is the best guarantee
of a space for all undergraduates, regardless of departmental affiliation
or organizational membership.
Another note is that we don’t receive JFC funding. From the overall
Student Activities Fee, we get a small
slice ($140,000) of a budget, of which
over half goes directly to students and
student organizations. We’ve had the
money sitting in reserves to make a
big expenditure like this for a while.
Without our purchase of the shell
space, we couldn’t have allocated in
a better way to help the student body.
However, if you think there are better
options to spend that money on, tell
us. We are always looking for oppor-
tunities to subsidize students who are
excited to do new things.
In regards to democracy of decision-making, Senate has continuously endeavored to make the shell space
as democratically informed as possible. We’ve spent tens of hours tabling for student opinions, soliciting
them by offering food to anyone who
would respond. Our polling began
during Senate Week 2014 (the second week of October). With its high
traffic, the Cohen University Center
(CUC) was the natural choice for location. We incentivized students to
respond by handing out free gifts.
Our big question: what is the space
that’s needed most on this campus?
The responses made it abundantly
clear that students both wanted and
needed a collaborative space for
studying or socializing. This was the
most feasible option that we solicited
directly from students, so we decided
laura scherb*
Publisher
Ariel Hoffmaier*
Forum Editor
Zeke Rosenberg
Sports Editor
Brian trimboli*
Editor-in-Chief
Sarah GuteKunst*
Operations Manager
Amelia Britton
Asst. Copy Manager
Claire Gianakas
SciTech Editor
Yeongwoo Hwang
Systems Manager
Benjamin Chang
Asst. Business Manager
Rachel Cohen
Contributing Editor
Lula Beresford-Banker
Pillbox Editor
Alison chiu
Advertising Manager
Xiyu Wang
Asst. Forum Editor
Braden Kelner
Contributing Editor
maryyann Landlord
Comics Editor
Benjamin Chang
Business Manager
Kate Groschner
Contributing Editor
Abhinav Gautam
Photo Editor
James wu
Copy Manager
Brent Heard
Contributing Editor
Eunice Oh
Art Editor
NIVEDITA CHOPRA
Asst. Copy Manager
Justin McGown
Contributing Editor
Michelle Wan
Personnel Manager
Isabel BleiMeister
Asst. Layout Manager
Brooke Kuei
Contributing Editor
Editorial Staff
Anne-sophie kim*
Layout Manager
to move forward with it.
Theoretically, at this point we
could have directly formed our shell
space committee. However, rather
than restrict our vision, we reopened
the forum for students, asking for
students’ ideal feel of a collaborative
space, and what resources it would
have. We tabled again (this time’s incentive was cakes from Prantl’s) and
collected responses that gave us a robust vision guided by what students
wanted and needed with our portion
of the shell space.
After feeling sufficiently informed
by the student body, we decided to
move forward with our newly formed
shell space committee. It’s been operational since early January, which
shows that we spent nearly a semester collecting information from the
undergraduates who we represent.
I find it hard to argue that this
process was not democratic. There
Vaasavi Unnava
Sophomore economics major
Staff
Senior Staff
Carl Glazer, Greg Hanneman, Alan Vangpat
Copy
Deborah Chu, Gordon Estes, Rin Fair, Evan
Kahn, Xinya Li, Stephanie Stern, Ian Tanaya
* Denotes executive committee member
comes a point where one can no
longer defer directly to students, for
the sake of productivity. An organization’s members inform the vision
for any organization on campus, but
smaller working groups execute various facets of that vision. In our organization, our membership happens to
be a bit bigger. It is unfeasible to have
a working team of 5,500. Simply put,
there would be many, many referendums.
We do our best to remain transparent and accessible. If you have any
opinions on the shell space, please
direct them to us. Student Government doesn’t exist to self-serve; we
unabashedly seek the opinions of
those we represent. I hope that I’ve
provided ample response and clarity
to the issue.
layout
Sean Ha, Korrawat Jianthanakanon
Advertising
Michelle Wan, Sophia Cheng
The Tartan is a student newspaper at Carnegie Mellon University, funded in part by the student
activities fee. It is a weekly publication by students during the fall and spring semesters, printed by
Trib Total Media. The Tartan is not an official publication of Carnegie Mellon University.
The Editorials appearing at the beginning of the opinion section are the official opinion of The
Tartan Editorial Board. Columns, Editorial Cartoons, and Reviews are the opinions of their
individual creators. The Tartan Editorial Staff reserves the right to withhold from publication
any copy it deems unfit.
Letters to the Editor are the opinions of their authors. Letters from within the University community take precedence. Letters intended for publication must be signed and include the author’s
address and telephone number for verification; letters must not exceed 350 words. Authors’ names
may be withheld from publication upon request. The Tartan reserves the right to condense or reject
any letter. Letters must be submitted by 5 p.m. on the Wednesday before publication by mail or to
[email protected].
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March 30, 2015 « The Tartanthetartan.org/forum » B5
Imagine Ted Cruz’s America: it’s horrible and ridiculous
Emmett Eldred
Junior Staffwriter
Last Monday, Senator Ted Cruz
kicked off the 2016 presidential election season by announcing his candidacy for president. Throughout
his speech, titled “The Promise of
America,” Cruz invited his audience
to imagine an America governed by
his policies. So I invite you to do the
same. Imagine, if you will, the promise of Ted Cruz’s America.
Policy one: “Imagine innovation
thriving on the Internet as government regulators and tax collectors
are kept at bay and more and more
opportunity is created.”
Here, Cruz is referring to net neutrality. You may remember his infamous “Net neutrality is Obamacare
for the Internet” tweet. The truth is,
net neutrality keeps the Internet exactly as it is now: free and open. All
it does is prevent Internet service
providers from biasing the way they
provide service. Providers can’t, for
instance, speed up or slow down
websites based on extra fees or contract negotiations. You don’t have to
imagine innovation thriving on the
Internet, because that’s what is happening right now. And net neutrality
keeps it that way.
Policy two: “Imagine America finally becoming energy self-sufficient
as millions and millions of high-paying jobs are created.”
Cruz must be talking about a future fueled by sustainable energy
sources, right? Surely not oil. Surely
not natural gas. Surely not coal.
Right? How about solar? Wind? Geothermal? Hydro-electric? Those are
new technologies that really could
create millions of jobs, and help bring
the United States closer to energy
independence. Nice work, Ted, I’m
with you on this one 100 percent! I
just don’t think you’re with you.
Policy three: “Imagine in 2017 a
new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.”
And replacing it with single payer
healthcare! Obamacare has its weak
points. It’s just that those weak points
are the more conservative aspects of
the bill; for instance, it includes no
public option. But even with those
weaknesses, Obamacare has been an
unquestionable success. It has provided insurance coverage to millions
of previously uninsured people. It has
slowed the rise of healthcare and insurance costs. It has opened coverage
to those with preexisting conditions,
it has outlawed gender discrimination in providing insurance, and it
has allowed me to stay on my parents’
health insurance until I’m 26.
But more importantly, Ted Cruz
had no viable alternative. He can’t
seek out a conservative, marketbased solution, because Obamacare
is the conservative, market-based
solution.
Policy four: ”Imagine a simple flat
tax… imagine abolishing the IRS.”
I knew Cruz was crazy, but not
this crazy. First of all, a simple flat
tax would be a monumentally unfair
tax system. Income inequality is at
record highs as it is, and what Cruz
is suggesting is a massive tax break
for the wealthy, and (most likely) a
huge tax increase for the working and
middle class.
Beyond that, who is supposed to
collect Cruz’s harmful, woefully inadequate flat tax without the IRS?
Is Cruz saying that he’ll collect every
American’s taxes personally? The IRS
doesn’t exist because taxes are high or
complicated. The IRS exists because
government bureaucracy may not
be great, but it’s better than nothing
when it comes to things like making
sure the government has money, and
making sure the President doesn’t
throw away tax revenue because it
got mixed in with his junk mail.
Policy five: “Imagine a president
that finally, finally, finally secures the
borders.”
Cruz knows that President Obama
has done more to secure the border
than most Presidents. Cruz is really talking about Obama’s “executive amnesty,” as he likes to call it
(it’s not), which has nothing to do
with border security. It’s all about
recognizing that the Department of
Homeland Security has bigger priorities than deporting a mother of three
young American citizens or a productive, law-abiding member of society
who was brought to the country illegally as a young child.
This article is getting long. I underestimated the depths of Cruz’s crazy.
It’s time for the lightning round.
Policy six: “Imagine a federal government that works to defend the
sanctity of human life…”
I’ll be expecting your repeal of the
death penalty on day one, President
Cruz. Not to mention war. And I’m
glad to hear you’ll be giving everyone
free healthcare.
Policy seven: “… and to uphold
the sacrament of marriage.”
Better get divorced now, before
President Cruz outlaws it. It’s in the
Bible, folks. That’s what he’s talking
about, right?
Policy eight: “Imagine a federal
government that protects the right to
keep and bear arms of all law-abiding
Americans.”
Cruz bragged on CNN this week
about fighting tooth and nail to kill
every commonsense gun control
measure proposed after the Sandy
Hook massacre, even the bipartisan
ones with near universal public support. See policy six.
Policy nine: “Instead of a government that seizes your e-mails and
your cell phones, imagine a federal
government that protected the privacy rights of every American.”
Even a broken clock is right twice
a day.
Policy ten: “Imagine repealing every word of Common Core.”
You’ll have to make it a federal law
first, though, so you can repeal it.
Policy 11: “Imagine embracing
school choice as the civil rights issue
of the next generation…”
Because racism is dead, after all,
along with sexism, homophobia, and
discrimination. It’s time to let schools
finally have abortions, or whatever
school choice means. But seriously,
making it easier and more appealing
for people to abandon public schools
denies every child’s right to a qual-
ity, free education. School choice is
nothing but white flight from public
schools.
Policy 12: “Imagine a president
who stands unapologetically with the
nation of Israel.”
Because Israel is the 51st state,
after all. (Yes, I did just dare boil USIsraeli relations down to eight words.
What can I say? It’s the lightning
round!)
who says ‘I will honor the Constitution, and under no circumstances
will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.’ ”
U.S. Constitution Article V Section 2: “Under no circumstances will
Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear
weapon.” Look it up, people.
who says ‘We will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism… and
call it by its name.’ ”
While we’re at it, let’s call the Ku
Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis radical Christian terrorists. That’ll go over well.
Or, as it may turn out, gross over-generalizations about people are only
okay when they’re about the trendy
religious or ethnic group to hate.
In conclusion, imagine Ted Cruz’s
America: Where Netflix is as dependable as Comcast. Where it’s easier to
get a gun than to vote. Where schools
have more choice than women.
Where Israel gets our unwavering
support, but millions of uninsured
Americans are left to fend for themselves. Where everyone has an equal
tax rate, regardless of their ability to
pay, but millions of Americans don’t
have the right to marry the person
they love. Where oil flows freely
through our pipelines, but our commander-in-chief wont even acknowledge that climate change exists.
We deserve better from our candidates. We deserve candidates who
will talk about the real issues, like income inequality and climate change
and the money in politics.
Who will bring real solutions to
the table rather than pander to hate
and emotion. Who will align their
policies to the facts, rather than religious dogma. The good news: Ted
Cruz will never be president. The bad
news: He’s running, and it isn’t going
to be pretty.
Maegha Singh/Staff Artist
New SBP, SBVP shouldn’t discard competition’s best ideas
Braden Kelner
This year, the candidates running
for Student Body President (SBP)
and Student Body Vice President
(SBVP) have each provided at least
one promising goal
to the student
body.
Emily Giedzinski/Staff Artist
JR Marshall and Jibby Ayo-Ani
have proposed to increase the number of students trained to be part
of the Survivor Support Network
(SSN), while Divya Kothandapani
and Mark Whiting have promised to
bridge the gap between graduates
and undergraduates, something that
is sorely needed. Evan Wineland and
Connie Yang have proposed to raise
student wages and expand students’
contact with the city of Pittsburgh.
All of the above portions of
these students’ platforms seem like
worthwhile pursuits
for the next SBP and
SBVP to tackle. However, many of the
other proposed initiatives in their agendas seem unnecessary
or unfeasible. I do not
foresee high levels of
involvement for Marshall’s proposal for a reorientation day or Wineland’s
proposal for a student-faculty
lunch program. Kothandapani’s
proposal for improved apps, while
nice, does not seem as important as
some of the already listed initiatives
proposed by other candidates. These
initiatives will either fail or not provide substantial change to our campus. I am not putting down these initiatives to lambaste the candidates’
platforms.
Instead, I am reviewing both the
promising and the less promising
positions to shed light on the fact
that each running pair has at least
one major initiative in their platform
worth pursuing, as well as some that
are not worth pursuing. If the winning candidate were able to tackle
the most important initiatives from
each platform, they would have an
undeniably strong presidency.
I’m writing to urge the winners of
this year’s Student Senate debates to
consider inviting the other serious
candidates (sorry, Saif Jedidi and
Ben Debebe) to their cabinet, and for
the pairs who do not win the elections to accept those invites. While,
of course, not all candidates can win
the positions of SBP and SBVP, their
proposed initiatives should not die
with their campaign. Instead, the
winning pair must consider working
with their former competitors during
the following academic year, in order
to provide tangible change before the
next election season.
With such highly motivated pairs
of candidates (this year has seen
more effort put into platforms and
campaigning than previous years), it
seems a shame that many of the important initiatives proposed will fall
to the wayside, only to be replaced by
less important initiatives like DineX
expansion, student-faculty lunches,
and improved apps.
In an ideal world, I would like to
see the next SBP and SBVP tackling
three equally ambitious goals—like
increasing SSN participation, bridging gaps in our student body, and
increasing student wages—rather
than having one or two important
proposals get dragged down by less
important initiatives, which are often
proposed almost every year (when
is the last time we weren’t promised
better faculty-student relations and
expanded shuttle services?).
Pulling the most important initiatives from each platform would
ensure that there are no fluff goals
for the next SBP and SBVP to tackle.
But in order to make three ambitious goals achievable, the winning
pair must consider working with
the people who first proposed them,
since these are the people who have
thought most about these initiatives
and probably have the best connections to make them happen.
If I were to have my way, the next
SBP and SBVP would choose the
most important initiative from each
running pair’s platform, and tackle
those three goals, rather than tackling one good initiative paired with a
few lesser initiatives. If I had my way,
all candidates would be in the winner’s cabinet to make these goals possible. With all candidates working together, I can imagine a SBP and SBVP
pair that could enact true change on
campus in multiple substantial areas.
Braden Kelner (bik@) is a contributing editor for The Tartan.
A PERSON’S OPINION
Compiled by Justin McGown
The Tartan is embracing its inner jokester this week. So we asked,
What was the best April Fools’ prank you ever witnessed?
Akash Kejriwal
Information Systems
First-year
Emma Harger
Psychology, German
Junior
Rhea Prabhu
Chemistry
First-year
Lucy Qian
ECE
Senior
Enosh Shachar
Chemical Engineering, BME
First-year
“In my high school, we brought
cows up to the second floor. April
Fools’ isn’t really allowed at our
school anymore.”
“In music class, we put an alarm
clock in the teacher’s piano, so
it would go off in the middle of
class.”
“I put Saran wrap across a doorway and then my friend walked
into it because she didn’t see it.
And then she fell.”
“My friends collectively tricked
me into believing that Carnival
got cancelled.”
“Somebody went on Facebook
and said I was joining the Israeli
military and my friends started
liking it to make it seem legit.”
B6 « thetartan.org/scitech
CMU professor writes parenting book Researchers study
the brain and
technical material
Courtesy of Illah Nourbakhsh
Illah Nourbakhsh, a robotics professor at CMU, wrote a book about raising children in an era of technology.
Sharon Wu
Staffwriter
As we progress into the
21st century, the role of artificial intelligence and robotics
has become an increasingly
controversial topic. While the
increasing presence of these
technologies has brought
conveniences into our lives
— from intelligent personal
assistants to robot-assisted
surgery — it also raises many
concerns, including the potential consequences of these
technologies on the social
and financial welfare of future
generations. In his latest book,
Parenting for Technology Futures Part 1: Education & Technology, Illah Nourbakhsh, a
professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, offers
parenting advice on how to
best prepare children for a
technology-driven future.
“I’ve written an earlier
book which talks about the
native impact robotic technology can have on society,”
Nourbakhsh said. “And one of
the most frequent questions I
got from readers was ‘I have
kids — what are they going to
do in a world with a lot of unemployment, in which robot
technology has taken over a
lot of what humans do today?
How do I prepare my kids for
that, so that they can have a
good life, even though [the
future] sounds like a very difficult time?’”
For a long time, Nourbakhsh has been pondering
these questions. A father of
two, Nourbakhsh joined the
Carnegie Mellon community
as an assistant professor of Robotics in 1997. Since then, he
has founded and directed the
Community Robotics, Education, and Technology Empowerments (CREATE) Lab. He
also serves as the head of the
Robotics Masters Programs
within The Robotics Institute.
Written from the perspective of a parent and an academic expert, Nourbakhsh’s
Parenting for Technology Futures is a response to the concerns of parents for their children’s futures, with a focus on
current education issues. Prior
to writing his book, he spent
about a year reading previously published books and
articles that existed on this
topic. “I was trying to find out
what some of the most important lessons to give somebody
are,” Nourbakhsh explained.
“I wanted to make the whole
book really thin so that it is
easy for anybody to read in almost a sitting or two.”
In addition to his readings,
the professor also turned to
two colleagues for assistance.
One of the colleagues was
Junlei Li, an associate professor of psychological science,
co-director of the Fred Rogers
Center, and an early childhood and learning expert at
St. Vincent College. “Junlei Li
really studies the question of
teaching practices, and what
it means to be innovative as
a teacher,” Nourbakhsh said.
The other colleague was Professor Fatemeh Zarghami, a
childhood and human development instructor at De Anza
College. She also certifies
child centers for the State of
California. “I [had] the two
of them read the early draft,”
Nourbakhsh said. “Then I read
their detailed comments and
rewrote the whole thing.”
To keep the book affordable and accessible to parents, Professor Nourbakhsh
self-published his book on
Amazon.com. The book is
available in both digital and
paperback versions.
The first volume of “Parenting for Technology Futures” is laid out into five
chapters that contain tutorials, as well as references to
additional reading materials.
In the introduction, the professor states the importance
of preparing children for mastery of technology fluency, so
that they become “creative
producers rather than robotic
consumers of technology” in
the future. Possessing technology fluency is, however,
described as being different
from having technology literacy, which the author believes
sentences people to passivity
as they set their sights “on the
goal of correctly employing
electronic products and digital media without hesitation.”
Following the introduction
on technology education, the
Danielle Hu
Staffwriter
As part of the global effort to explore and understand complex behaviors of
the brain, Robert Mason, senior research associate and
Marcel Just, director of the
Center for Cognitive Brain
Imaging (CCBI) at Carnegie
Mellon, have been studying
how the brain learns and
processes successive information.
In May 2015, their most
recent findings, from projects that are part of Carnegie Mellon’s BrainHubSM
initiative, will be published
in Volume 111 of the scientific journal NeuroImage.
Mason, the lead author
of the study, believes that
their work will benefit research on future learning
techniques by approaching this subject area not in
a behavioral manner, like
most studies in the past, but
rather by directly examining
the brain.
Although this topic of
how the brain learns is an
ongoing process that Mason and Just continue to
explore, their most recent
paper centers around a
study consisting of fourteen
college students. The students, six female and eight
male, were asked to listen to
informative descriptions of
four different types of mechanical systems and were
analyzed through the CCBI’s
fMRI machine. Each participant received information
about these systems that
could easily be understood
from a nontechnical standpoint, and were given small
visual aids to support the explanations.
The researchers studied
mechanical systems including a bathroom scale, a fire
extinguisher, an automobile braking system, and a
trumpet. Although these
objects are common to everyday life, the mechanics
of the objects are not generally known to the public. For
example, the participants
in the study learned about
the bathroom scale through
phrases such as “A bathroom
scale consists of a lever, a
spring, a ratchet and a dial,”
“the person’s weight exerts a
downward force on a lever,”
See BRAIN, B7
See TECHNOLOGY, B8
How things work
Caffeine effects are often misconceived
Brooke Kuei
But what really happens after you take that first sip and
the caffeine starts to course
through your body?
Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, according to the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). After
drinking or eating something
with caffeine in it, you will
likely experience symptoms
such as alertness, improved
concentration, a quickened
heartbeat, or the jitters. But
don’t give your coffee all the
credit for your productivity
just yet — you might be surprised by what caffeine actually does to your body.
The truth is, caffeine is the
ultimate chemical prankster.
According to Medical News
Today, adenosine is a chemical in our cells that promotes
sleep and suppresses arousal.
Normally, adenosine binds
to adenosine receptors in the
brain, causing cell activity to
slow down. However, to an
unsuspecting nerve cell, caffeine looks just like adenosine. As a result, the adenosine
Google teams up
with Johnson &
Johnson
New headway on
Alzheimer’s, heart
disease
Possibility of alien
life on Jupiter’s
moon Europa
Researches suggest Facebook tests
an alternative
laser drones in
approach to drugs
U.K. skies
Fatty acids suggest
the possibility of
life on Mars
This past Friday, Google
and the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson announced a partnership between Google’s life sciences
division and Ethicon, a division of Johnson & Johnson
that makes surgical products,
to develop new robot-assisted
surgery technologies.
Some of the partnership
goals include developing software that could highlight features of the body that are crucial but difficult to see, such as
blood vessels, nerves, or the
margins around a tumor, and
also imaging technologies to
give surgeons better visuals,
all of which can be crucial to
successfully removing cancer
tumors.
By pursuing this technology, it is evident that Google
has ambitions far beyond Internet searching, especially
with the creation of its life sciences division, which is part of
the Google X research unit.
According to a report from
the scientific community in
Iceland this past week, in the
process of exploring the nation’s genetic makeup, Icelandic scientists have uncovered
an unknown gene pool with
mutations that may play roles
in causing ailments such as
Alzheimer’s disease, gallstone,
and even heart diseases.
While some diseases, like
cystic fibrosis, are caused by
a single genetic mutation, the
most common ones are caused
by multiple mutations, and
mutations to a number of different genes can each raise the
risk of getting heart disease
or even breast cancer, for example.
Many of these diseases,
however, are rare, which
means it is necessary to sample
large groups of people in order
to conduct research. This development is unprecedented
in that it involves investigating
a smaller group of people.
Europa, one of Jupiter’s
moons, is one of the few places where life could potentially
exist due to its icy ocean, researchers say.
Researchers believe Europa to have an ocean up to 100
kilometers deep, which is 10
times deeper than any ocean
on Earth. They also have concluded that the moon could
contain twice as much water
as Earth, which would meet
one of the primary conditions
for the existence of life as we
know it.
Researchers also believe
that they could deduce whether life on Europa is sustainable
without actually visiting the
moon itself, by investigating in
Antarctica, which is the host to
a number of hidden lakes. Antarctic lakes are the best analog
we have for Europa’s hidden
ocean, so, if life can endure
the conditions under the Antarctic ice, the odds of finding it
on Europa will improve.
The discovery that switching various genes on or off
may be able to provide a new
treatment strategy other than
drugs, for various cancers,
including breast cancers and
ovarian cancers. Drugs often
fail to reach the targeted area,
proving to be useless, and in
many cases even harmful as
they affect healthy cells instead of cancerous ones. After
trying to approach this problem with drugs, scientists in
Australia have been fiddling
with the cancerous tissue itself. “Maybe we can shift the
tumor in the direction of the
therapy rather than developing the therapy in the direction of the tumor,” says Rob
Ramsay from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Along with
new treatment development,
this discovery could help give
patients more information
about their chances of survival.
Last Friday, Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg announced
to the world that various teams
at Facebook have been testing
large, solar-powered drones in
the skies over the U.K.
“As part of our internet.org
effort to connect the world,
we’ve designed unmanned aircrafts that can beam Internet
access down to people from
the sky,” said Zuckerberg in a
blog post. “We’ve successfully
completed our first test flight of
these aircraft in the U.K.”
Ascenta, a Somerset, U.K.based designer of solar-powered drones, developed the
drones, which are designed to
fly for months at a time at altitudes of 60,000 feet.
The purpose of Facebook’s
internet.org initiative is to connect at least another billion
people to the Internet. The goal
is to create new markets for the
social network in order to add
to the 1.39 billion monthly active users already on Facebook.
A molecule that could be
a fatty acid, the equivalent of
lard, has been found by NASA’s
Curiosity Rover in the soil of
the Red Planet. It is still unclear
if the molecule originates from
a biological source.
David Glavin, who works
on the rover’s Sample Analysis
at Mars instrument, presented
the findings at the Lunar and
Planetary Science Conference
in The Woodlands, Texas, last
week.
Researchers at NASA discovered that there are similarities between the gases released
by samples of the fatty acid and
various complex compounds
on Earth.
This might not be a direct
sign of life, but it it does mean
that Mars could be host to complex organic molecules, which
suggests that microbes could
be found there in the future.
Source: The New York Times
Source: The New York Times
Source: BBC
Source: New Scientist
Source: The Guardian
Contributing Editor
Do the baristas at your local Starbucks know you by
name?
Even if they don’t start
scribbling down your name
before you open your mouth,
you are likely part of a generation in which coffee is king.
Most of us live and breathe
coffee, idolizing it as a magical blend that helps us start
our days, study for exams,
and get through meetings.
receptors bind to caffeine instead, leaving few left for the
actual adenosine and causing
cell activity to speed up instead of slow down.
When the pituitary gland
notices this increase in cell
activity, it assumes that there
is an emergency and tells
the adrenal glands to secrete
adrenaline, the fight-orflight hormone responsible
for your extra energy and
fast heartbeat. The release
See COFFEE, B8
Courtesy of Robert Mason
Carnegie Mellon University senior research associate Robert Mason
has been researching how the brain understands technical information.
scitech briefs
Source: New Scientist
Compiled By
claire Gianakas
Julia Napolitano
March 30, 2015 « The Tartanthetartan.org/scitech » B7
PUGWASH COLUMN
Malicious programs raise questions regarding free software
Ben Hammer/Junior Staff Artist
Joseph Rollinson
Special to The Tartan
Pugwash began this week’s
meeting by watching Richard Stallman’s TED talk from
2014. Stallman is the founder
of the free software movement, which has the goal of
providing certain freedoms
for software users, including
the freedom to run a program,
change a program’s source
code, redistribute a program,
and redistribute a program
with your changes. Stallman
argues that these freedoms are
necessary for users to maintain control over the programs
they run. He believes that programs without these freedoms
can be instruments of unjust
power, because the developer
of the program can include
malicious functionalities without the user’s knowledge. Malicious programs can snoop on
users, track users, and restrict
program functionalities.
There are many examples
of this type of program. For
instance, in 2009, Amazon,
much to the shock of its users,
deleted a version of George
Orwell’s 1984 from all Kindles without the permission
of their owners. This angered
many users and showed that
Amazon had complete control
over the devices. Another instance occurred in 2010 when
Sony released an update to the
Play Station 3 that removed
support for installing Linux.
At its launch, Sony had touted
Researchers study how we
perceive technical material
BRAIN, from B6
and “the lever pulls a spring
downward in a proportion to
the weight.”
Through reverse engineering, Mason and Just
were able to take the data
exhibited from the fMRI machine and deduce the underlying neurological processes
that generate understanding of such mechanics. “You
see how it works, and you
have to reason back to what
mechanism would give you
this pattern,” Just said. “For
example, if we see activation
in an area of the brain that
is very commonly associated
with visual imagery, we can
say that they are forming
some type of visual connection.”
This study also utilizes
machine learning through
the use of a “classifier,”
which takes in variables that
form a relationship and,
upon the presentation of
new and unknown variables,
will be able to classify where
those new variables fit into
the mappings of data.
In this particular application, the machine is able
to identify what people are
thinking about in a precise
manner. “The thought patterns are specific to that
system,” Just said. “So your
activation pattern for when
you think about a trumpet
is different from when you
think about a bathroom
scale.” This classifier essentially allows scientists such
as Just and Mason to accurately measure the thought
processes of people.
Both Mason and Just
found the results from the
classifier as the most interesting aspect of this study
thus far. Mason explained
that “the degree to which
you can see similarities in
knowledge
representation
across individuals” is both
surprising and interesting.
According to Just, since
the classifier analyzes multiple individuals, the fact that
it can identify similar results
for all individuals shows
that these patterns are uniform for all individuals. “All
of our brains are organized
in the same way,” Just said.
For instance, autistic brains
process information like concrete objects and emotions
the same way as standard
brains do, and the only difference between the two are
thoughts in relation to social
Autistic brains
process
information
like concrete
objects and
emotions the
same way
as standard
brains do ....
The way one
understands
how a hammer
works or how
the emotion of
anger feels is
the same across
completely
different
backgrounds.
interaction. The way one
understands how a hammer
works or how the emotion of
anger feels is the same across
completely different backgrounds.
Just explained that the
brain categorizes learning
these mechanical processes
into four main parts. Before
learning, the brain’s ac-
tions are “primarily visual.”
As more detail is given, the
brain transitions to a “mental
animation” of how the system works. The third stage
involves a state known as
“causal reasoning,” which is
when the brain puts together
visualizations to try and understand what causes certain
reactions. The last step is
known as “embodiment,” in
which one would relate one’s
own body to the system. So,
for example, if a hammer was
being described, the individual receiving this description
would eventually connect his
or her own dominant hand
to a hammer and visualize
or understand the use of the
hammer from a personal
perspective. Just theorizes
that, even with abstract concepts such as mathematics
or theoretical physics, which
humans cannot physically
interact with, people still try
to connect the body with the
concept as a way to gain a
better understanding of how
it works.
Mason chose to use mechanical systems as the main
focus for the study as a starting point. “With many mechanical systems, we already
know what the system does
and how to use it, but unless
we really look into it, often
times we don’t know how
something works.”
He hopes that understanding the brain’s learning
process will eventually trigger curiosity in individuals
and lead them to “think like
little scientists.”
Mason and Just’s research
will continue to explore the
relationship between learning and the brain, and they
hope to expand the range
of materials, as well as domains of knowledge, in future tests. Eventually, they
would like to apply different
training techniques that will
apply to future classroom
instructions.
the ability to install Linux on
the PS3. Sony compelled users
to update their systems by disabling online features on consoles that were not updated. In
2007, Microsoft updated nine
small programs on machines
running either Windows XP
or Windows Vista without
user approval. Although these
changes proved to be benign,
it showed that Microsoft has
a universal back door through
which anything on the user’s
machine can be changed. In
2013, Bloomberg reported
that Microsoft shares information with the NSA about
vulnerabilities in its popular
products before it fixes them
so that the NSA and other
agencies can infiltrate users’
computers.
After watching Stallman’s
TED talk, members of Pugwash agreed with his argument that something has
to be done about malicious
programs, but many did not
agree with his solution. Mem-
bers who were not technically
focused felt quite helpless. If
they couldn’t trust software
developed by companies, why
could they trust software developed by other programmers?
More technically-minded
members argued that, unlike
companies, the open source
community did not have a
reason to write malicious programs. In fact, such a community tends to be self-policing.
However, this argument did
not quell the concerns of many
members.
Many members felt that
Stallman understated the sacrifice of only using free software. Free software can be of
lower quality and is frequently
designed for programmers
rather than regular users.
Many popular services use
cloud-based programs, which
by definition cannot be free
software. By pretending that
the sacrifice of only using free
software is quite small, Stallman perpetuates the alienation non-programmers feel
from the free software community.
Some members of Pugwash
argued that the free software
movement was the wrong
method for preventing malicious programs. Instead, they
argued that governmental
regulation of programs should
prevent companies from providing malicious programs.
Other members argued that
this process was quite impossible, because of the monumental effort required to enforce
such regulation.
All members of Pugwash
agreed that malicious code
was a serious problem. However, many felt quite helpless
and disgruntled by the free
software movement. The technological barriers to understanding and being able to do
something about this problem
continues to be an issue without a simple solution.
B8 « thetartan.org/scitech
How things work
Coffee isn’t what you think
it is, but give it another shot
Eunice Oh/Art Editor
COFFEE, from B6
of dopamine, another stimulating hormone, is also increased. In other words, your
beloved caffeine is not the
real stimulant — it just tricks
your body into releasing more
of its natural stimulants.
Unfortunately for frequent
caffeine
consumers, the brain increases its
amount of adenosine receptors as it begins to notice caffeine hogging them.
This is what causes people
to develop a tolerance for
caffeine. When coffee regulars miss their daily dose,
they experience withdrawal
because the brain becomes
overloaded with adenosine
from all the extra adenosine
receptors.
So now that you know
how your coffee works, the
next question to ask is whether it is good or bad for you.
According to Rob van Dam,
assistant professor in the
Department of Nutrition at
the Harvard School of Public
Health and a coffee expert,
there has been controversy
over the topic because coffee
is actually an extremely complex drink that contains hundreds of other compounds
besides just caffeine. It is also
sometimes difficult to separate the effects of coffee from
the effects of other lifestyle
choices that coffee drinkers
may have.
However, by conducting
studies on coffee’s influence
on very specific health effects, researchers have found
some trends.
The latest Harvard study,
which also agrees with other
recent research, seems to
indicate that there is no relationship between coffee
consumption and increased
risk of death from cancer or
cardiovascular disease.
In fact, some studies have
even shown that coffee consumption can reduce the risk
of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer,
and liver cirrhosis, although
these studies merely demonstrate correlation and do not
confirm causation. Of course,
it is important to keep in
mind that the subjects in
these studies drank mostly
black coffee or coffee with
just a little bit of sugar and
milk.
Overall, the consensus
among the scientific community is that, unless you
are drinking to the point that
you have tremors or chronic
insomnia, coffee is not detrimental to your health.
So keep working on getting that Starbucks Gold Card
— the rewards might not only
include free drinks, but some
extra health benefits.
Professor writes book about
children in technological era
TECHNOLOGY, from B6
professor discusses the policy
debate concerning Science,
Technology,
Engineering,
and Math (STEM) learning in
the U.S. “I bring parents up
to date with what I think they
need to know about schools
today and the STEM [strategy],” said Nourbakhsh.
“What it means, what the
politics are behind it, and
how schools use and misuse
it.”
Aiming to improve its performance among its foreign
peers, the U.S. government
has implemented programs
including the No Child Left
Behind Act and Race to the
Top. In turn, there has been
a push for accountability, a
policy in which funding for
schools depends upon the
tested proficiencies of its
students. However, as Nourbakhsh points out, such measure can have drawbacks.
“Diane Ravitch was an Assistant Secretary of Education, and she was originally
on the side for accountability.
But what she discovered over
time is that when you have
these systems of accountability, it diverts the underlying goal of learning. So now,
you’re not using a test just to
see how good somebody is at
learning.
You’re using the test as a
guideline on what to teach,”
said Nourbakhsh. “What really matters is that teachers can
engage well with students,
and cause a love of learning
to blossom.”
The book then transitions
into the topic of digital learning. In this section of the
book, Nourbakhsh mentions
examples of digital learning,
including Massive Online
Open Courses (MOOC’s),
Khan Academy, and cognitive
tutors. “I try to lay out some
groundwork on what the
digital learning system space
looks like, its testing tools
and the tools that your child
can benefit from,” said Nourbakhsh. “I also talk about
some of the hype that you
hear — like having a [digital] tutor that can solve all
the problems that your child
does in math class—and the
“We’re entering
an age where
technology will
be changing
rapidly. We
need more and
more guides
that help us
make sense of
that new age.”
— Illah
Nourbakhsh,
professor of robotics
at Carnegie Mellon
subtleties that explain why
this hype isn’t true.”
At the end of the book,
Nourbakhsh also includes a
preview of the second volume, which suggests activities that parents can do with
their kids, from toddlers to
teenagers. Activity ideas include watching car shows or
identifying invasive species
at local park conservancies.
“In all those cases you’re
teaching your child to identify something,” said Nourbakhsh. “That turns out to
be a very important part of
technological fluency, which
allows you to do things like
program computers in the
future.”
In keeping his first volume
to 64 pages, Nourbakhsh
wanted to create a guide
that parents could easily
refer back to. During his research for his book, he noticed a dearth of books that
discussed STEM and digital
learning from an unbiased
perspective.
In addition, he also saw
that there was very little content written to help parents
understand the idea of STEM
and standards within the education system.
“We’re entering an age
where technology will be
changing rapidly. We need
more and more guides that
help us make sense of that
new age,” said Nourbakhsh.
“And I hope my book is just
one example of what we’re
going to see several kinds of
versions of in the future.”
In the coming weeks, free
copies of his book will be distributed during a conference
about technology fluency for
teaching and learning. In
the meantime, Nourbakhsh
is working on the second installment of his parenting
book. He also maintains a
blog that focuses on a predicted future, one in which
robots will play a bigger part
in the lives of human beings.
Beyond his achievements
as a professional, at the end
of the day, Nourbakhsh is a
father who carries the strong
belief that parents must be
active participants in the
learning development of
their children.
“You cannot outsource it
to a computer, and you cannot outsource it to the teacher,” he stated. “You have to be
actively participating in that
process if you want your kids
to succeed.”
March 30, 2015 « The Tartanthetartan.org/sports » B9
sports commentary
Well-balanced roster fuels Pirates’ division crown hopes
Zeke rosenberg
Sports Editor
As the baseball season
starts next week, the Pirates
have the opportunity to build
on a recent run of success that
resulted in two straight postseason appearances after a
torturous multi-decade stretch
without seeing postseason
baseball. The Cardinals look
weakened, the Cubs are relying on a lot to go right, and the
Pirates are in a great position
to win the National League
(NL) Central for the first time
ever.
This Pirates team’s ability to win a ton of games this
year will start with a very talented assortment of position
players. From the outfield
in, the Pirates sport a lot of
strengths in the field with very
few standout weaknesses. In
a competitive NL Central, this
combination of depth and topshelf talent could be the difference over the course of a long
season.
The most striking concentration of talent on the Pirates
is in the outfield. Pittsburgh
is the only team in the league
that can rival the Miami Marlins consensus top trio outside
the diamond. While the most
obvious name in the outfield
is center fielder and 2013 MVP
Andrew McCutchen, the corner outfielders should not be
forgotten.
Left fielder Starling Marte
is a very toolsy player, near the
top of the league in his ability
to get on base, cover lots of
territory, run the bases, throw
from the outfield and, when
he gets hot, absolutely crush
the baseball. He is criminally
underrated every year and
has given the Pirates a massive boost in his time with the
team.
In the other corner, right
fielder
Gregory
Polanco
should begin to deliver on his
promise as a prospect after a
lukewarm rookie season. Once
a common mention among
Baseball America top prospects, Polanco did not mash as
many expected him to, when
he came into the league. He
struggled to get on base and
hit for power, which put some
giant gashes in his numbers.
However, the jump from the
minor leagues to the majors
is a tough one, and the spring
training results have been encouraging.
Some ground balls have
been turning into line drives
and fly balls, which are more
likely to turn into hits, and Polanco is a prime breakout candidate in 2015.
The infield outlook is a bit
less rosy, but not much of a
weakness. The corners of the
infield are well taken care
of. After a down season, first
baseman Pedro Alvarez’s power numbers should bounce
back to somewhere close to
his 2013 heights, and his ability to get on base and get extra
base hits were improvements
over previous season’s results.
Alvarez is absolutely destroying spring training, and the
power is showing again. He
may not hit 36 home runs this
year, but he could reach 25–30
and be a huge boon for the Pirates offense.
At the hot corner, third
baseman Josh Harrelson
looks to build on a breakout
year where his versatility and
range of skills both offensively
and defensively made him
extremely valuable wherever
manager Clint Hurdle needed
him on the field. There was
nothing in his peripherals to
imply that his season was a
fluke, and he should continue
both hitting well and closing
off the foul line at third base.
The middle infield will be held
down by Neil Walker, possibly
the league’s best offensive second baseman after the Mariners’ second baseman Robinson Cano, and Jordy Mercer,
a satisfactory but uninspiring
option at shortstop. The two
are a decent defensive double
play combination, and Neil
Walker can hit well enough for
the both of them. The Pirates’
infield should be above average, even if it isn’t spectacular.
The Pirates’ rotation might
scare off those who support
them, with starters Francisco
Liriano and Gerrit Cole being
the only players set to have
above average seasons. Both
of them are high variance
pitchers, however, and the rotation will certainly be a weakness. The return of starter A.J.
Burnett does little to move the
needle. If anything will undo
the Pirates, it is the rotation.
However, an excellent defensive team and decent starters
should not cause too much
of a leak, and this should not
overwhelm the Pirates’ excellent offense. The bullpen,
including closer Mark Melancon, also goes deep and can
help ease the difficulties of the
rotation.
Finally, the competition
is not as good as everyone
thinks. The Brewer’s first-half
fluky success is not replicable,
and they should not be a factor.
With first baseman Joey
Votto not returning to his former self, the Reds could potentially be one of the worst
teams in the league and will
probably deal starter Johnny
Cueto by the trade deadline.
The Cubs will be very good
in the near future, but it is silly
to expect all of their prospects
to turn into stars overnight,
and players like starter Jake
Arietta might regress. The
addition of starter Jon Lester
should not flip the script for
the Cubs overnight.
Finally, the mighty Cardinals were not better than the
Pirates last year, and would
not have won the division
without several absences
from McCutchen. With many
of their best players beginning to age, the Cardinals are
more susceptible to bad injury
luck than the Pirates, and the
Cardinals offense is not very
deep, with only a few players
providing more than average
offense. Right fielder Jason
Heyward, the Cardinals’ big
off-season acquisition, does
not offer much in the way of
offense, and left fielder Matt
Holiday is set for a major decline.
The door is open for the
Pirates. With the Cubs on the
rise and the Cardinals trending down, it is the perfect
time. It could be now or never
to grab an NL Central title
with this core.
Sophomore Nicholle Torres won 6–2, 6–0 in the second
slot. Junior Abbey Hamstra
also won a singles match 6–2,
6–0 in the fourth slot.
The team’s success did not
carry to Saturday, however,
as they were beaten 5–4 by
No. 10 Washington and Lee
University. The Tartans were
swept in doubles play and
could not recover in time to
take the match.
Sophomore Vanessa Pavia
was able to win her match,
which forced a 4–4 tie, but the
deciding match went to Washington and Lee, dropping the
Tartans to 11–4.
The Tartans finished the
weekend 11–5 after losing to
Williams University on Sunday afternoon.
The women’s tennis team
will next play on April 4, when
they host the University of
Mary Washington.
Men’s tennis
his match 6–0, 6–0, sophomore Kunal Wadwani took his
match 6–2, 6–1, and first-year
Tommy Cheng won 6–2, 6–3,
all contributing to the 9–0
overall victory.
The match against Washington and Lee was much of
the same. The Tartans took
two of three matches in doubles play, with Beisswanger
and Kumar winning 8–5 while
Wadwani and sophomore
Kenny Zheng swept their
match, 8–0.
In singles play, senior Will
Duncan and sophomore Kiril
Kirkov won 6–2, 6–3, and 6–2,
6–0, respectively, leading the
Tartans to a 6–3 overall victory.
The men’s team rolled to
another victory on Sunday,
sweeping Christopher Newport University 9–0 to move to
11–6.
The men’s tennis team will
continue their season April 4,
when they host Case Western
Reserve University.
Sports briefs
Women’s tennis
The Carnegie Mellon women’s tennis team improved to
11–3 on the season with a 9–0
home win over Grove City College at the start of last week
on March 23. Seniors Bryn
Raschke and Angela Pratt won
8–3, senior Lydia Utkin and
first-year Kalyani Narayan
took their match 8–2.
Juniors Elizabeth Martin
and Brooke Tsu shut out their
opposition 8–0 in doubles
play. The Tartans continued
their sweep, winning all six
singles matches. Pratt won
6–1, 6–1 at the top of the ladder.
The Carnegie Mellon men’s
tennis team continued their
success this season, sweeping
Grove City College on March
23 and beating Washington
and Lee University on Saturday to move to a 9–6 record
for the season. Senior Bryce
Beisswanger and junior Yuvraj Kumar took their match
8-0, while senior Christian
Heaney-Secord and first-year
Jeffrey Chen won 8–0 as well.
First-years Matt Seifert and
Andrew Pratt rounded out the
sweep of doubles play, taking
an 8–1 victory.
Junior Abhishek Alla won
Compiled By
Zeke Rosenberg
B10 « thetartan.org/sports
Ultimate teams set to aim for the stars at College Series
zeke rosenberg
Sports Editor
Despite inclement weather
leading to a series of cancellations, Carnegie Mellon’s only
Division I sports teams have
rolled to successful seasons.
The Money Mellons and Mr.
Yuk, respectively the women’s
and men’s ultimate frisbee
teams, are approaching the
2015 College Series, their
postseason. With some wins
and some impressively close
losses against top competition, both squads are looking
to build on their performances and gain some success at
regionals.
The
Money
Mellons,
ranked 65 in the nation,
started their season with lofty
goals. “At regionals, we’ve gotten sixth, max,” said senior
captain Lauren Miller, a senior
business administration and
statistics double major. “We
want to top that.”
In order to achieve this
goal, the team has been trying to develop a deep and
balanced team, with each of
the 25 players capable of filling many on–field roles. Each
player needs to be skilled and
confident to give the team the
ability to reach their goals.
The team has had some on–
field success as well, finishing
in the top four in each of their
fall tournaments. Their first
tournament, the Theodore
Seuss Geisel Memorial Ultimate Tournament, resulted in
a third place finish and a 7–1
record, including a key victory
over McMaster University,
a Canadian college. Despite
Photos by Dagney Cooke, courtesy of Lauren Miller
Top: A Money Mellons pregame huddle. Bottom left: Grace Kim and Christine Rooney (3) set up a play. Bottom right: Dagney Cooke starts to throw.
windy conditions that made
it tough for both teams, the
Money Mellons were able to
win a back and forth game on
the strength of an aggressive
attack.
Their next tournament,
North Coast, ended with a second place finish after a close final with Ohio State University,
last year’s national champion.
A late 6–0 run brought the
Money Mellons close, but they
couldn’t overcome the deficit
and narrowly lost 13–10.
Their season continued
with a fourth place finish at
the Fall Brawl in Columbus,
Ohio.
A 5–2 record included a
15–1 beatdown of regional
rivals Case Western Reserve
University. The team finished
fourth after an overtime loss
to Michigan State University.
The Money Mellons’ first
spring tournament was hit
hard by snow, causing a large
number of teams to drop
out. They went 3–3 at the
tournament.
Mr. Yuk also found some
success in the fall. The team
played the University of Pittsburgh, national champions in
two of the last three years, to a
back and forth 15–10 loss after
Pitt pulled away in the closing
moments. The next day, Mr.
Yuk took down the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, with the
help of senior mechanical engineering major Alec Assaad
who hit senior captain and
senior mechanical engineering and public policy student
Reid Almand with a deep pass
to take the match 13–12.
Like the Money Mellons,
Mr. Yuk has focused largely on
building the team.
“After graduating 75 percent of the team in 2013, last
year was spent building a
strong rookie class,” said Almand.
This year, with another
strong freshman class, Mr. Yuk
is set up for long term success.
The team is currently preparing for Conferences, the first
installment of the College Series.
The team’s goal is to advance beyond there.
“It’s all about peaking at
the right time,” said Almand,
“And a Cinderella run to Nationals is always in the back of
our minds.”
The team is not limited to
organized play either.
After a tournament in
Washington, D.C. was cancelled the morning of, Mr. Yuk
played scrimmages with Princeton University and George
Washington University, taking both matches, which were
played directly on the National
Mall.
With the College Series
beginning in mid-April, both
teams have plenty of time to
shake off the cancellations
and snow-covered tournaments to build on early season
successes and put together
some postseason victories.
Host Australia tops Black Caps for Cricket World Cup win
abhinav gautam
Photo Editor
Australian bowler Mitchell Starc bowled the fifth ball
of the day and clean bowled
wicket keeper Brendon McCullum, the New Zealand
captain, for a zero. The record
crowd of 93,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground roared
as Australia got their first
wicket in the first over, leaving
New Zealand one for one.
Over the last month and
half, 14 nations have played
48 matches at the 11th Cricket
World Cup, jointly hosted by
Australia and New Zealand for
the second time (last time being in 1992). The 2015 World
Cup marked the first time Afghanistan’s cricket team qualified for the tournament. Three
associate nations — Ireland,
Scotland, and United Arab
Emirates — will play with the
full member nations of the
International Cricket Council
(ICC): England, South Africa,
India, Australia, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe.
Despite a valiant effort
by associate nations, the expected full member teams
led Group Stage matches and
qualified for the quarter final.
After the close, nerve-wracking first semifinal match, the
New Zealand cricket team
defeated South Africa, continued their perfect World Cup
winning streak and secured
their place in the final for the
first time. Australia had only
lost to New Zealand in a very
close, yet thrilling match in
the Group Stage. But they
pulled out a dominant win
over India, previous World
Cup winner and one of the fan
favorites, in the semifinal and
claimed their spot in the final
for the seventh time.
Once again, the co-hosts
of the World Cup were the
contenders for the final match
this Sunday. New Zealand was
the team in best form without
any doubts this World Cup.
The team played aggressive,
attacking games. With excellent leadership by McCullum,
batsman Martin Guptil’s high
scores, all-rounder Daniel Vettori’s good form, and opening
bowler Trent Boult taking the
most wickets in the tournament, New Zealand had good
chances for their first World
Cup victory. Meanwhile, Australia was no lesser of a team.
Having a strong home-field
advantage — winning 24
matches of its last 26 matches at home — the Australian
team has a penchant for attacking and winning World
Cups, having won four out of
the six finals. Australian captain and batsman Michael
Clarke set beautifully crafted
fields to get the wickets and
changed his batting order to
score the most runs possible.
Along with the strong top
batting order including batsmen David Warner and Steve
Smith, the Australians would
definitely give New Zealand
bowlers a challenge. Though
their only shortcoming is the
lack of a quality spinner, the
Australian bowling side gets
along fine with both Mitchell
Starc — the highest wicket
taker so far in the tournament
— and Mitchell Johnson in
great shape.
The Melbourne pitch was
expected to be bouncy, but
also
batsman-friendly
as
most of the pitches have been
throughout the tournament
for record-breaking scores.
With no rain forecasted, the
final match of the 2015 World
Cup began on a bright, sunny
Australian afternoon. Starc
started the bowling attack
with fast and full bowling.
With McCullum gone for a
duck in the first over, the day
of the bowlers started. With
the first opener gone, New
Zealand continued to play
safely and was struck down
by high-quality pace bowling from Starc, bowler Josh
Hazelwood, and Johnson. At
the end of the first ten overs
New Zealand stood 31 for one,
its lowest 10-over score this
World Cup. Luck was not on
New Zealand’s side as it lost
Guptill soon afterwards for 15
and Williamson for 12. Standing 41 for three for at end of
the 14th over, Grant Elliott and
Ross Taylor gave some hope to
the Black Caps as they scored
111 in their partnership. However, a determined Australia
got the breakthrough they
needed at the start of the
power play, getting Taylor out
through an appeal. Soon two
more wickets fell down and
New Zealand was at 165 for
six at the end of the 40th over
with Elliott still standing, but
playing more cautiously. This
did not last long as Johnson
took another wicket and Australian bowler James Faulkner
soon took the final big wicket
of Elliott. Twelve runs were
scored afterwards as New Zealand collapsed at 183 all out
with Johnson and Faulkner
both taking three wickets each
and Starc helping with two
wickets and very tight bowling. Despite losing the toss,
the Australians had a good
chance of the winning another
World Cup title as they went
into the lunch break.
New Zealand began with a
similarly impressive opening
over by claiming the wicket
of Aaron Finch and leaving
the Aussies with two for one.
However, batsman DA Warner
carried the next ten overs by
hitting seven fours and giving
the edge to the Australians
despite being two down for 63
at the end of 12th over. Now
Clarke came in and played a
captain’s innings. Along with
Smith, the duo scored the
highest partnership of the day
with 112 runs. Clarke hit ten
fours and one six before finally getting bowled out for 74
by New Zealand bowler Matt
Henry. He did not get to hit
the winning runs, but his half
century got Australia close to
a easy win with just short of
nine runs. As Clarke left the
MCG, he deserved a standing
ovation for playing a true captain’s innings and for this final
being his last One Day International Match. Only twelve
more balls were needed, as
Smith whirled an unorthodox
hit for four and Australia won
the World Cup final by seven
wickets.
The Aussies rushed onto
the field and got into a group
hug for a deserving win. Closing ceremonies soon followed
with Clarke feeling “over the
moon” and said that New Zealand are always a tough team
to beat in any sport. McCullum
felt that though 183 was too
short, it was still an approachable dream.
However, he and the New
Zealand team were in high
spirits as McCullum ended
saying “[we] didn’t lift the trophy but no regrets [about] the
brand of cricket we’ve played
and we walk away with our
heads held high.”
Faulkner picked up the
Man of the Match for his 36
for three finish. Starc received
the Man of the Tournament
award for amassing reverseswinging yorkers and 22 wickets throughout the tournament. As the Australian team
picked up the trophy, they
became the first team to have
won the World Cup on all five
continents in which cricket is
played. They went for the victory lap around the stadium as
the fans were still roaring from
the win. The team appropriately dedicated their win to
batsman Phillip Hughes, who
had died after being struck on
the neck by a ball in Sydney in
November.
Zeke Rosenberg/Sports Editor
Pillbox
The Tartan’s art & culture magazine
4
Food Truck Block Party
8
Tales from Abroad
9
Del Sol String Quartet
03.30.15 Volume 109, Issue 21
...this week only
3
Baking
4
Food Trucks
5
van Gogh
6
Grey’s Anatomy
Here’s a recipe for peanut butter rice crispies,
and some ideas for Passover-friendly goodies.
CMU student life staff combines on-campus
proximity with tastes from off-campus.
New van Gogh exhibit at the Carnegie Institute
of Art is minimal but enjoyable.
The limelight narrows its focus and casts a
strong spotlight on Dr. Meredith Grey.
7 Go study outside!Discover new places to embrace the incoming
sun on campus.
8
4
9
String quartet
10
Rosa Parks
5
Del Sol String Quartet brings aurally fascinating
music from contemporary composers.
Jeanne Theoharis illuminates the lesser known
sides of national heroine Rosa Parks.
10
9
regulars...
...diversions
3
Advice
8
Tales from Abroad
15
Calendar
A questioning alum asks Evan about how
appropriate it is for her to go to Carnival.
Jenni Tuttle shares a bit of her experiences
with unexpected adventures in Europe.
Since the weather is nicer, discover some of the
amazing events around campus and the city.
11
Comics
13
Puzzles
14
Horoscopes
View political cartoons as well as more inane
diversions in this week’s comics section.
Expand your mental faculties with this week’s
puzzles.
Learn how the stars predict your week will go,
and what pranks will be best for you to pull.
PUBLISHER Laura Scherb EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brian Trimboli
PILLBOX EDITOR Lula Beresford Assistant Pillbox Editor Lanre Adetola COMICS EDITOR Maryyann Landlord
ART EDITOR Eunice Oh PHOTO EDITOR Abhinav Gautam
COPY MANAGER James Wu COVER Matt Nielsen
The Tartan . Box 119 . UC Suite 103 . Carnegie Mellon University . 5000 Forbes Ave . Pittsburgh, PA 15213 . www.thetartan.org . © 2015 The Tartan
Peanut butter rice krispies
Try making these easy indulgences with marshmallows
This week’s article is dedicated to all those out
there with a sweet tooth who will be celebrating
Passover next week.
Back in high school, I would celebrate “Cupcake
Wednesday” every week with my friends at
lunch. Each Tuesday night I would sit down with
Martha Stewart, Betty Crocker, and some of my
blogger best friends to find the perfect cupcake
to bring in the next day. Except, I always forgot
about Passover each time it came around. My
friend Abby London was always left without a
cupcake, and I felt so bad!
This year, even though I won’t be around to
actually give her a special treat, I’m dedicating
this recipe to her.
Just because leavening is off the table doesn’t
mean that dessert has to be, too. I found this
recipe when I fell down the rabbit hole of
Pinterest. I like that it’s not only a really fun,
unexpected flavor that brings back memories of
elementary school packed lunches, but it’s also
really quick and easy to make!
The gist of this recipe? Take the blank canvas
of Rice Krispies treats that’s already almost as
perfect as can be, and then add peanut butter.
Marshmallow and peanut butter are such a great
flavor combination that can only get better with
the added crunch of the cereal and richness from
the butter.
Fluffer Nutter Rice Krispy Treats
1/4 cup of unsalted butter
1 10-ounce bag of regular sized marshmallows
1/2 cup of peanut butter
5 cups of crispy rice cereal
1 1/4 cups of mini marshmallows
1 bag of Reese’s peanut butter chips
1 or 2 bags of mini Reese’s cups
Instructions
1) First things first: Either coat a 9x13 pan
with cooking spray or line the pan with some
parchment paper.
2) Melt butter in a pretty large pot over low heat.
Then pour in the marshmallows. They’ll start to
soften and eventually just melt into a soft shiny
cream that will be tempting to dig into with
nothing but a spoon and what little pride you
might have left. But wait. Next, add in the peanut
butter. It, too, will melt into the marshmallow
butter sauce. It also might turn you on a little.
Before your stimulated senses lead you astray,
take it off the heat.
3) Before this concoction has too much time to
cool down, stir in the cereal and make sure it’s
evenly distributed so you don’t have any really
sad pockets of dry cereal with globs of peanut
butter elsewhere. Then when the mix is cool but
not set, stir in the mini marshmallows by hand.
This step is optional if you would rather not
complicate things too much, but it really adds
some fun to each bite! The marshmallow flavor
can get buried under the peanut butter, so the
mini ’mallows throughout really help to give that
flavor a boost!
4) Dump the treats out into the pan, but don’t
press down too hard while evening it out.
After that, melt the peanut butter chips in the
microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in
between. Spread the melted chips out across the
treats, and before that hardens, sprinkle the mini
Reese’s cups over the top: If you can bear it, try
to wait at least a half hour for everything to set. It
will be so worth it in the end. Because truly, these
will blow your mind. AND they’re Kosher!
Looking for a few more Passoverappropriate dessert options? More kosher
options (without nuts)?
Anything fruity is a great option! You could make
any kind of fruit salad that your heart desires,
or even a parfait. Layer some awesome seasonal
fruits with any flavor yogurt or pudding in cups
for yourself or your Seder guests. For an added
treat, you can soak the fruits in some orange juice
and sugar for an hour or so. This will make them
extra juicy and flavorful.
Desserts that use egg whites also leave you with
so many great choices. You can treat yourselves
to some macaroons, meringues or even pavlovas!
These are a little tricky to make, but store bought
is usually still a great option.
You can also stick with a classic and indulge your
sweet tooth with some Matzo. You can make an
ice cream sandwich, spread some Nutella and top
it with bananas, or my favorite — s’mores!
Advice for awkward people
About alums creepin’ back for Carnival
Dear Evan,
Dear NICOLE’D,
I’m a recent graduate and
I have a bit of a dilemma;
I could use your sage
advice. The Stockholm
syndrome has started
to kick in, and I find
that I’m starting to miss
CMU. Now don’t get me
wrong, I’m happy to be
free from the stress and
the homework, but I miss
things like weird people
and the freedom to be
weird. I know I could get
my dose of nostalgia and
whatnot by coming to
Carnival, but therein lays
the problem.
You sound familiar. Do I
know you from somewhere?
In any case, I congratulate
you. You’re the first person
to write in this school
year that writes in an
intelligible manner! You
deserve accolades, flowers,
smatterings of applause.
Adulthood has captured
the free time and finances
of my friends and former
classmates, and I find
I have no one to go to
Carnival with. I would be
down to go alone, maybe,
but I don’t want to come
off as the desperate alum
trying to relive her youth,
and I don’t want to pay
a good chunk of change
and fly across the country
only to be that creepy
person at Carnival who
roams around by herself.
So, should I just get up
early and watch Buggy in
my PJs, or should I come
to Carnival?
Best,
Nostalgic for Imbibing
Cool, Opulent Liquors in
English Department
But yeah, adulthood
sucks. As a secondsemester senior, I should
be celebrating loudly and
fervently, but instead I
feel this creeping wave
of exhaustion and
apprehension of what’s
to come — I have to take
responsibility for my own
life, my choices, my budget.
Perish the thought!
It seems like you’re feeling
pretty lonely, too, so there’s
only really one remedy for
that: Come to Carnival.
Screw the cost, and screw
the people you think will
look at you a little funny for
being the alum wandering
through the third-year-in-arow Pirates of the Caribbean
booth behind the group of
tittering freshmen girls — it’ll
be worth it. You know it’ll be
worth it.
People aren’t going to care,
anyway — they’ll be too
busy trying not to be seen
buying their fifth basket of
deep-fried Oreos in a day.
Buggy in PJs still sounds
fun, though,
Evan Kahn
Sarah Gutekunst | Operations Manager
baking
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3
Food Truck Block Party draws huge crowd
Student Life Staff hosts food trucks from around Pittsburgh and offers activities and music
This past Saturday, residents of the Carnegie Mellon
community braved the cold to attend the inaugural
Margaret Morrison Food Truck Block Party. There
were several different food trucks present, including
some old Carnegie Mellon favorites like Joe’s
Doghouse, Tartans’ Express, and India on Wheels,
as well as some new and exciting options from
businesses in the Pittsburgh area. The event kicked
off promptly at noon with live performances from
groups including East End Mile, Ethan Bence, Arts
Greenhouse, and The Treblemakers. In addition to
the food and live performances, there were a variety
of games available to the partygoers, such as “Pinthe-Tie on Suresh!”
These performances, games, and exciting new
food trucks were sure to present students with a
promising afternoon. However, in addition to these
events, there were also long lines. Though slightly
overwhelming at first, it took more than these long
lines and cold winds to keep everyone away from the
food.
First up on our food truck journey was Mac and Gold,
Pittsburgh’s Original Mac ‘n’ Cheesery. Although
the line seemed quite long at first glance, we moved
along at an impressive pace. We opted for the
Barbeque Beef Brisket Mac n’ Cheese. Simply put, it
was delicious. The perfectly cheesy mac and cheese
was topped with barbeque brisket and crispy French
fried onions. The other options, including the roasted
butternut squash mac and cheese and the prosciutto
and pea mac and cheese, also received positive
reviews. The short wait time coupled with the great
food made Mac and Gold a true crowd pleaser.
Although the wait was not ideal, it turned out to be a
small price to pay.
Despite the cold weather, we were still greeted
with happy and friendly faces by those working in
the Bella Christie and Lil Z’s Sweet Boutique food
truck. Bella Christie’s offered a variety of tasty
treats, including cookies, cupcakes, cake pops,
and all things chocolate-covered. The treats were
very inexpensive, beautifully decorated, and quite
delicious. We chose the chocolate covered Oreos,
and were not in any way disappointed. The best part
was the food truck’s lack of any line whatsoever.
The Sweet Boutique quickly became a block party
favorite.
Judging by the exceptionally long line at Taco Cho’s,
which offered Korean Mexican Fusion style tacos,
one might have assumed that it was a crowd favorite.
But when we asked a fellow student, first-year
materials science and engineering major Indorica
Sutradhar, about her experience at Taco Cho’s, she
described her tacos as “kind of cold” and “just okay.”
Unfortunately, we heard similar responses from
several others, as many found the tacos lackluster
and not worth the wait. Perhaps the tent setup, as
opposed to the standard food truck option, caused
a few problems with cooking time and food quality.
Although we were not able to personally attend Taco
Cho’s because of the long queue, we were able to
visit several others.
Franktuary, which offered up classic hot dogs and
fries, also became one of our favorites — taste wise,
that is. The food was great, but getting to the food
was a different story. The line, which appeared to
be fairly short, looked promising at first. We were 30
minutes into waiting when we realized it might take
slightly longer than previously estimated to acquire
one of Franktuary’s grass-fed all-beef hotdogs. The
bitter cold got the best of some of those waiting in
line, but 45 minutes into waiting, we decided we
had gone too far to back out now. We envied those in
the fast-moving Mac and Gold queue as we waited,
and waited, and waited. Eventually our order was
placed after a wait time totaling one hour and 45
minutes. However, after receiving our food, we finally
understood why so many others had waited this long
for hot dogs and French fries — they were delicious.
All in all, most of food offered at the Margaret
Morrison Food Truck Block Party was pleasing, but
the extremely long lines ended up leaving a sour
taste in some mouths.
India Price & Jade Crockem | Junior Staffwriters
Abhinav Gautam | Photo Editor
Sometimes the best food comes in trucks, like Franktuary’s delicious variety of hot dog-related and vegetarian fare.
Students gather for tasty, warm, and freshly cooked tacos.
4 food
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Van Gogh exhibit doesn’t reach potential
Visiting van Gogh an interesting addition to an afternoon at the Carnegie Institute of Art
There are some art exhibits you can get lost in, wander
for hours, feel time slip away as you move between
paintings.
Visiting van Gogh, now on view at the Carnegie
Museum of Art (CMOA), is not one of them.
Not from a lack of interesting material — to its credit,
the exhibit does what it can with only four paintings
on display. But despite being the museum’s main visiting exhibition, it’s better suited as a stop on a longer
visit, not a main attraction.
The exhibit is contained to a small, peripheral room
adjacent to the museum’s permanent collections.
Security guards are badgered by guests who ask, “Is
there another room? Is this really all?”
It’s easy to make the mistake of judging quality by
quantity. The CMOA has pulled off highly interesting
exhibits with only a few actual art works in the past.
Just last June through September, Faked, Forgotten,
Found was a brilliant and engaging exhibit detailing
the journeys of four — yes, four — original paintings
across centuries, between owners, and among forgeries of varying persuasiveness.
It’s been done before, but not here. Visiting van Gogh
is interesting in an understated way, but it doesn’t
seem to fully capitalize on the material it has or the
incredibly recognizable name that accompanies it.
The first painting isn’t van Gogh’s. It’s his contemporary Paul Signac’s “Place des Lices, St. Tropez” — a
pointillist work in golden yellow and orange offset by
blue and green. A man sits on a bench in the shade of
big-bowed trees with thick, undulating trunks and purple-spotted branches winding up to a swirl of greenblue foliage. There’s something distinctly van Gogh in
the curving edge of the foliage, the leaves gathering in
perfect, thoughtful circles, reminiscent of the whirling
clouds in van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.”
Other than the friendship and clear influence between
Signac and van Gogh, the painting’s inclusion isn’t
well explained. The exposition describes Signac’s
belief that certain colors evoked corresponding emotions — an idea with which van Gogh, too, experimented — but not much else related to the titular artist. In a larger exhibit, it’s common and enlightening to
include the work of the main artist’s contemporaries —
but in such a small exhibit, and with a weak apparent
tie to the other three paintings, the Signac just seems
out of place.
The painting helps to inform, however, the series of
color theory information panels and activities on the
adjacent wall. These panels detail a history of color
theory from Sir Isaac Newton’s original 1660 black-andwhite color wheel to the divisionist movement, which
explored how separate dots of color interact optically
when viewed together. The exposition sheds interesting light on the philosophy behind van Gogh’s legendary work and offers a lens for viewing the remaining
three paintings.
Most interestingly, the museum recreated van Gogh’s
caddy full of balls of yarn, explaining how the artist
once sat facing the open box, twisting together yarn
strands of different colors to see how the colors interacted optically before juxtaposing them in his paintings. We often remember van Gogh as the crazed man
who sliced off his own ear, à la Kirk Douglas’s tortured
portrayal in Lust for Life. It’s hard to imagine the artist
sitting at a desk, winding yarn, pairing colors experimentally and thoughtfully. The yarn box an important
reminder that planning, not just haphazard genius,
plays into every great artist’s work.
The remainder of the exhibit takes us through van
Gogh’s evolution from struggling twenty-something to
Parisian resident to established artist poised to leave
a legacy when he died in 1890. Van Gogh’s painting
career didn’t start until the mid-1880s — toward the
end of his life, during which he was extremely prolific.
Though the original painting isn’t featured, the CMOA
provides an image of van Gogh’s 1885 “The Potato
Eaters” — a dark, realist painting in what was briefly
van Gogh’s style before his art dealer brother recommended the lighter palette of the French impressioists.
An immediate contrast, “Le Moulin de la Galette” —
the second featured painting — was created only a
year later, but stylistically, couldn’t be more different.
The tranquil, bucolic scene of windmill and chicken
coop is characterized by soft greens and blues, the
windmill blades barely sketched: You can imagine the
tip of the brush just skimming the canvas. It’s still far
removed from his later impressionist influences, but
closer to his familiar pastel-dominated palette.
Van Gogh’s “Still Life, Basket of Apples” shows the
artist grudgingly emulating some of his impressionist
peers. The strokes are thicker, deliberate, even excessive compared to “Le Moulin de la Galette.” The crimson-outlined weave of the basket is swathed in heavy
strokes of yellow and blue, lending the painting circular, swaddling movement. It’s clearly an early experiment, but it looks more like the van Gogh we know.
Rachel Cohen | Contributing Editor
“Wheat Fields” is one of the four pieces in CMOA’s display.
Though beautiful and focal to the exhibit, the placement of “Wheat Fields” is sudden after a four-year
gap in van Gogh’s artistic career after “Le Moulin,”
during which he was allegedly his most prolific, and
yet the museum features no further works from this
period. After “Wheat Fields,” viewers are left with a
jarring and unsatisfying description of how the artist
succumbed to suicide shortly after that painting was
finished. It’s an unsettling transition, especially as we
had been so carefully guided through the artist’s early
stages, and yet we’re left to imagine what seemed like
his most defining years. More exposition to ease the
chronology would have been welcome.
If you’re a University of Pittsburgh or Carnegie Mellon
student with free admission,Visting van Gogh alone
may be worth the 10-minute walk down the street. But
if you’re a non-affiliate, group this exhibit with others
you’d like to see.
Rachel Cohen | Contributing Editor
Editor’s Note: Exhibit runs until July 6, 2015.
Admission is free with Carnegie Mellon ID.
The final work in the exhibit, 1890’s “Wheat Fields
After the Rain,” is van Gogh in his full glory. Thick,
strong layers of green and yellow create linear movement in grass and the landscape stretching away from
the viewer — strokes so thick that they cast shadows
underneath them. It’s not just green, though: Mint,
grass, lime, pine, teal, and turquoise complement and
offset each other. Spots of white and red sketch indistinct wildflowers in the foreground, while wide robin’segg-blue curves depict clouds and sky overhead.
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5
Grey’s Anatomy’s character-focused last season
Final episodes of medical drama from Shonda Rhimes bring Dr. Meredith Grey to the forefront
Ten years ago, a massive TV phenomenon began. This
program marked the beginning of ShondaLand and
the rise of medical TV shows in primetime American
television broadcasting. A year prior, FOX began airing
a medical procedural drama which became a massive
success: Grey’s Anatomy. Before that, ABC produced
Scrubs, a more comedic take on medical television, but
broadcast it through NBC. Shonda Rhimes decided to
make the show by mixing elements from other programs.
She was able to develop a program that has accurate
medicine in it, some procedural aspects to certain
episodes, and an overarching story that centers on
Meredith Grey and her colleagues. Through the years,
the program has evolved, bringing in new characters and
focusing more on the ensemble. After 11 seasons, the
show has returned to its origins: it is more about Meredith
than any other season in the show’s history.
With a marked absence from Derek (her husband) and
Cristina (her person), the show has been able to take
Meredith Grey out of her comfort zone and push her into
situations where she has been forced to develop more
completely as a character. This is part of what makes
Grey’s Anatomy such an excellent show. Through the
years, we have seen their relationship go through many
obstacles and states of being. The actors, Ellen Pompeo
and Patrick Dempsey, have shown palpable chemistry
from the onset of the series, and their relationship has
blossomed from Derek’s runaway affair to a loving
marriage bound by a Post-It. This marriage has been
struggling for the past two seasons with Meredith trying
to have time for advancing her career and Derek feeling
stuck in his. From the beginning of Season 11, Derek
was itching to leave for Washington, D.C. (which he
ends up doing), which basically made Meredith choose
between doing what she loved in the place she has called
home for most of her life, or follow Derek to Washington,
D.C. and risk everything she has worked hard to
achieve. Ultimately, she stays in Seattle and continues
her marriage to Derek, bringing the hardships of longdistance relationships to the show.
than one month without a patient of hers dying. As some
of you probably know, as an attending general surgeon
of a high-profile hospital, there is a high probability that
at least one of your patients will die during a shift. This is
especially true if the hospital is prone to natural disasters
and dramatic events, as is the Sloan-Grey Memorial
Hospital where Meredith works.
Meanwhile, Meredith is also struggling because she has
lost the most important relationship she has had since
the inception of the program. Since Dr. Cristina Yang
moved from Seattle, Meredith lost her “person.” This loss
is suffered much more than the current state of her other
relationships because she and Cristina had been through
the same experiences at the same pace and struggled
with very similar problems. Through those struggles they
had created a bond that was essential for both of them;
with that bond, they knew they could count on each
other at all times. Feeling left outside of her comfort zone,
without anyone to fall back on, she focuses on her work
and her relationships with the rest of her colleagues.
Grey’s Anatomy works because the writers know the
characters; they understand where they have come
from and where they are going; they believe in certain
relationships, and they flow seamlessly between
background characters, guests, recurring characters, and
the main cast.
This season has also shown Meredith finding herself by
delving into her past and the writings of her deceased
mother. She does this not for herself, but for her newfound
half-sister. The writers of this show have a knack for
introducing stories that fit perfectly with the backstories
of other characters and indulging the need for characters
that shift focus, change relationships, and bring with
them an entire trunk full of baggage.
This season has highlighted how alone Meredith feels and
how much more driven she has become through it all. In
the last episode she broke her streak; she had gone more
Although the primary focus of this season has been on
Meredith, a few subplots do recur throughout the season,
and a sense of finality looms over all of the characters.
Shonda Rhimes likes to tie up loose ends and give
characters a well-deserved ending, so a lot of characters
are getting their share of the spotlight. This has been
most notable with Callie and Arizona’s relationship and
Arizona’s efforts to become a fetal surgeon. This character
has suffered through an amputated leg, a miscarriage,
and a very recent separation from Callie; seeing her
succeed and go through some extreme training was a
welcomed change in pace and character progression.
Finally, Shonda Rhimes is closing the show that has given
her a rise to fame, that spawned a spin-off while it was
still being broadcast, and inspired two telenovelas in Latin
America. Grey’s Anatomy will be missed — it has graced
American television for the past 10 years, and its impact
will not go unnoticed.
José Lopez | Staffwriter
Meredith Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo, has been
a more singular focus this season than in past
seasons, allowing the series to round out with an
examination of how she has grown as a person.
Courtesy of ABCLocal via Flickr Creative Commons
6 television
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Itching to get out of your messy room?
Be the first to nab a spot in some of campus’s nicest outdoor study spaces
It may not seem like it yet, but it will soon soon be time to
shed jackets and sweatshirts for T-shirts. With warm rays on
the way, it may be tempting to throw work out the window
in lieu of a day playing frisbee on the Cut.
But for those without time to relax, the warm weather is not
off limits. There is no reason to tackle work inside when there
are so many outdoor locations on campus to sit back, relax,
and get down to work.
Following are some of the best places to work with the
benefit of fresh breezes. Many of these locations are secluded
and immune to the noise of campus, making them the
perfect places to boost productivity.
at the center of the building is equipped with a number
of tables and outlets, as well as access to the open sky. At
night, there are lamps, although turning them on can be
confusing. There’s always back-up light streaming through
the windows of the building, though, which makes this
space a feasible place to work into the early hours of the next
morning, if needed. Plus the courtyard is closed off to the
bustle inside the building during the day, so noise is not a
problem.
meaning there are various flat elevation points on it to spread
out work.
If it rains, there is a spacious room right next to the courtyard
with doors that open out onto it. Prop them open to escape
the water, but still get that feeling of being outside.
Gesling Stadium Bleachers
Beneath the Pausch Bridge
The Hobbit Hole
Located just outside the main entrance to Baker Hall, this
study spot on the Mall is not visible to the average passerby.
A work area carved out of a hill, this space is likened by
many students to Bilbo Baggins’s house from J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Hobbit, and is the perfect spot to hide away in when
work begins to pile up.
Not only are there a number of spacious benches to spread
papers out upon, but there are outlets to juice up devices
when their battery power runs low. Also, the hubbub from
the Cut seems to fade away after descending into the
carved out area. Noise from WRCT’s speakers and students
promoting their organizations’ causes outside Doherty Hall
are not an issue here. The sun shines pretty brightly on the
benches, but it’s possible to pick up work and move to the
shade of a nearby tree when the heat becomes unbearable.
Tepper School Courtyard
Want a space to work outside, but need the comfort of
mortar and bricks to focus? The courtyard inside the Tepper
School of Business may be the perfect place. This open area
moviesinmcconomy
The Randy Pausch Bridge is one of the most well-known and
well-traveled places on campus. At night its rainbow lights
at make it hard to miss, and the penguins on its walls bring a
sense of intrigue to the structure.
The only downside to these locations is the noise that they
attract. At the center of campus, these places are almost
never completely quiet due to the number of people who
pass by them at all times of the day. Nevertheless, if noise is
not a hindrance, these locations are some of the most easily
accessible, and both get strong Wi-Fi signals.
The football stadium’s bleachers don’t only have to serve
spectators on the weekends. They can also serve students
hoping to get in a few extra hours of studying. The bleachers
are essentially flat slabs that span a large portion of the East
Campus Garage, giving students plenty of real estate to use.
They can be quiet if not too many people are on the field and
traffic isn’t too heavy on Forbes Avenue on the opposite side
of the garage.
But what is less well-known about the bridge is the great
shaded study space it provides below. There is a nice
patch of grass just below the bridge equipped with a single
bench. Few travelers pass through this way, so noise is not
a problem. While there are no outlets to charge devices, the
area below the bridge offers a nice reading area. Print out
papers and skim away.
If some cover is preferable, Tartans Pavilion across the
way offers a view of the stadium and an open atmosphere
to the outside on days when it is nice. Access to Wi-Fi
is questionable on the bleachers, but easily attainable at
Tartans Pavilion.
Tennis Courts
Braden Kelner | Contributing Editor
On either side of the tennis courts are two perfect places to
study. Between Margaret Morrison Hall and the courts is an
area that was just refurbished with chairs to lounge in and
watch the matches... or do work. This area provides a zen
atmosphere that could make you feel like you’re in Florida.
On the other side of the courts is a nice grassy hill that
everyone on campus knows about. The hill is tiered,
McConomy Auditorium, Cohon University Center
The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies
Lula Beresford | Pillbox Editor
Inherent Vice
Friday, Apr. 3
8 p.m., 11 p.m.
Saturday, Apr. 4
8 p.m., 11 p.m.
If you are a big fan of Legolas, or are itching to see Martin Freeman onscreen before the
long awaited fourth season of Sherlock premieres later this year, The Hobbit: The Battle
of the Five Armies is playing this Friday to give you your Lord of the Rings fill. In this third
installment of The Hobbit franchise, Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) pulls out all the stops in his
attempts to save Middle Earth from obliteration due to the heavy-handedness and pride
of various armies. Five armies to be exact. Elves, dwarves, orcs, men, and eagles angrily
wield a variety of weapons in the hopes of defeating wonderfully colorful opponents.
Unreciprocated love, fancy gems, people with pointy ears: this film has got them all. With
sweeping panoramas that are guaranteed to make you want to visit New Zealand, The
Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a bombastic and exciting final film of this beloved
fantasy trilogy.
One of the biggest crime drama flicks of 2014, Inherent Vice features an all-star cast.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as a perpetually high private detective, who is hired by his
ex to help her current lover escape the nefarious plans of his wife. When there is a
disappearance — which is really only semi-surprising — Phoenix (known as “Doc”)
has to pursue various suspects in a world filled with surfers and cops, suspects and
moderately normal people, all fueled and muddled by excessive marijuana. The cast
includes stellar performances from Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Josh Brolin, and
Owen Wilson, among others. Filled with laughs and inanity, Inherent Vice is a great
movie to see with your friends when you can’t decide on any other movie that you
would like to see. Also, the more people you attend the movie with, the more likely it is
that somebody will understand it.
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7
Tales from Abroad: Learning to go with the flow
Getting the most out of experiences overseas requires a laid-back attitude and an open mind
Before I studied abroad, I hadn’t left the confines
of North America. Sure, I had been on trips to
Canada with my family and several high school
clubs, but that was the extent of my international
travels. After just under two months studying
abroad, I have now been to three new countries.
I’ve explored several cities in France, where I can
somewhat easily navigate and communicate with
locals. But I’ve also been to countries where I
had to hope that the people I encountered would
be able to speak English or at least be willing to
mime their way through a conversation with me.
I tend to be an organized person who makes a
plan and follows through with it. The idea that I
would get lost, have to look at a map, have to ask
questions, and maybe have to take a few detours
along the way was honestly frightening.
Somehow, though, during my time here, I have
learned how to relax, let go, and just go with the
flow. And that is how I have had some of the most
memorable experiences of my life. I took a day
trip to a place I had never heard of, with no idea
what I would do there, and ended up exploring a
charming town with a rich history and beautiful
sights. I had a delicious home-cooked dinner after
going home with a Danish family I met at a brewery tour in Copenhagen. I have had conversations
with people who come from cities I can barely pronounce in countries that I have only vaguely heard
about. I have ended up in bars and clubs that I
will never be able to place on a map where people
come up to me simply because they want to
practice their English and hear about the United
States, and those discussions have been some of
the most riveting in my life.
I have tried to find museums or stores and ended
up wandering parks so vast and beautiful they
made me forget I was in the middle of one of the
largest cities in the world.
Spontaneity has been my greatest ally during my
time here. While I may sometimes feel uneasy
about not having a concrete plan, it’s also incredibly liberating to realize that I can go anywhere
and do anything that I want. This will probably be
the only chance I have to live in a foreign country
and feel like I have no real responsibilities holding
Jenni Tuttle | Junior Photographer
The writer stands in front of the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam in the Netherlands as she continues to explore the unfamiliar.
me down, so I have decided to take this time to be
young and free.
I have learned how to live in the moment. While
that sometimes means missing the last metro
home and having to pay for a taxi, or getting
caught in the rain without an umbrella, nothing has gone horribly wrong so far. And even if it
does, that’s just the way life works. No matter how
hard we plan, we never know exactly how it will
turn out, so why not welcome every unexpected
experience, every chance that is presented to
make a connection and meet some new people? It
just may change your life.
Jenni Tuttle | Junior Staffwriter
The beautiful Mont Saint-Michel castle is an ancient
monastery on an island in Normandy and offers tourists unparalleled traveling experience.
Jenni Tuttle | Junior Photographer
8 travel
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Del Sol String Quartet performs in Kresge Auditorium
Virtuosic quartet brings contemporary chamber music pieces from around the world to CMU
The internationally renowned Del Sol String Quartet
graced Carnegie Mellon University with their presence at their concert in the College of Fine Art’s Kresge
Auditorium on Thursday night. Though the concert was
free and open to the public, it was disappointing to see
that there was only a smattering of audience members,
maxing out around 50. The musicians — Benjamin
Kreith and Rick Shinozaki, violin, Charlton Lee, viola, and
Kathryn Bates, cello — played their hearts out anyway.
Based out of San Francisco, the Del Sol String Quartet
has been focused on the future of music and its contemporary creators since the group was founded back
in 1992. Known for innovative and fascinating art partnerships and their extensive commissioning of modern
works, Del Sol has brought sounds from around the world
to many audiences during their tenure. The quartet has
seven albums, and played a piece off their most recent
album Sculthorpe: The Complete String Quartets with
Didgeridoo, at Carnegie Mellon.
The pieces played on Thursday night were all written
by modern composers. The first piece they played was
called “Fast Blue Village 2,” and was written in 2007 by
Uzbekistani composer Elena Kats-Chernin. The piece
began with an eerie synchronized introduction from the
cello and the viola. During the course of the piece, two or
three of the instrumentalists would have phrases played
in synchronization. This gave the piece the nice ebb and
flow of coming together and moving apart, giving the
audience a resolution periodically, and adding structure
to the shape of the piece. The piece sounded incredibly sad and a little angry as it finished out the last eight
measures or so with choppy and harsh notes played by all
four musicians simultaneously. According to the program,
“Fast Blue Village 2” was created “from material to be
played by a set of robots designed by Roland Obeiter” and
indeed, you could tell.
The second piece was introduced by the violist, Charlton
Lee, who talked about the nature of the piece as “taking
the old with the new.” The piece — “Calligraffiti” — written by Chinese composer Huang Ruo in 2009, mixes the
traditional word “calligraphy” with “graffiti” and plays off
that theme during the course of the piece. Lee described
the piece as being reminiscent of what it was like to
grow up in a Chinese family in the United States, due to
Ruo’s mixing of “something so authentic with something
so profane.” “Calligraffiti” began with a high wavering
whisper from the cello, before others joined in with a
whispery tone. Playing with very little pressure and close
to the bridge on these stringed instruments, the piece of
music trod the line between ugly and pretty noises. Other
less traditional tones, liberal use of artificial harmonics,
and minimal vibrato also gave the piece an exceptionally unique feel. Occasionally one musician of the bunch
would play with a clear strong tone, and it felt like a
breath of fresh air. I began to find myself wishing for more
of these interludes, as I am a person not familiar with contemporary chamber music, and the weird scratchy tone
often confused me. Ultimately the dichotomy between the
clear tone and the rest of the tones played by the musicians was part of what the piece was all about, and I was
intrigued having experienced something so innovative.
The third piece was the piece from their album. Though
played without the didgeridoo part, String Quartet No.
14 “Quamby” still called to mind the imagery of the
Tasmanian shore its composer hailed from. Reminiscing
on life as a child, Peter Sculthorpe wrote the piece about
cliffs he used to walk on as a child, and the experience of
watching the birds and thinking about the cliffs’ history.
The word “Quamby,” the name of a certain bluff, means
“save me” or “mercy.” The piece is in four movements,
though all were connected by a general feeling of loneliness and wonder. The first movement’s long and dramatic
phrasing sounded kind of like the beautiful sweeping melodies of the Pride and Prejudice film from 2005, though
played in a completely minor key. The third movement
featured some gull sounds mimicked perfectly on the
cello. All in all this piece was my favorite of the evening,
managing to convey a whole story in just four short movements.
The second half of the concert began with Italian composer Stefano Scodannibio’s take on Monteverdi’s famous
madrigals. “Mas Lugares (su Madrigali di Monteverdi)”
did indeed use melodies and harmonies found in the
madrigals, but explored these well known songs using
new texture and strange harmonic couplings. During his
introduction of the piece, violinist Benjamin Kreith talked
about how “tactile” a composer Scodannibio was, and
that became aggressively apparent during the course of
the piece. Maybe because I’m kind of a wimp, I found
myself wishing that the pieces were played with traditional tone and emphasis, as I am not used to hearing
such husky and squeaky sounds. Though I can appreciate
the creative and textured piece, it definitely is not one
that is going on my listening list.
The concert ended with a piece written by a member of
Carnegie Mellon School of Music faculty, Professor Reza
Vali, who hails from Iran. His piece “Gâtâr (Calligraphy
No. 11)” used the Persian modal system, instead of a
Western modal system. This made the intervals in the
piece sound very different from the intervals audiences
are accustomed to hearing in, say, Mozart. It was the
Pittsburgh premiere of this piece and the third piece of
Valli’s the quartet has played. The piece included frequent solos from the instrumentalists, and often seemed
to include portions of call and response. The response to
the piece was enthusiastic and Professor Vali joined the
musicians on stage for a final bow.
Matt Nielsen | Staff Photographer
Violinist Rick Shinozaki and violist Charlton Lee play each
of the challenging pieces with animation and personality.
music, and it only made me wish that more people had
gone to see the performance. The innovative use of tone
quality, harmony, and articulate storytelling provoked me
to consider what I think of as beautiful chamber music,
and where I think chamber music is going. For a genre
so rooted in the music of its historical greats, I think it is
important to put down the Beethoven once in a while and
look to the future.
Lula Beresford | Pillbox Editor
It was wonderful to attend a performance from individuals who are on the forefront of contemporary chamber
music
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9
Professor Jeanne Theoharis talks at CMU
Students and community members gather in Giant Eagle Auditorium to learn about Rosa Parks
Jeanne Theoharis gave a riveting lecture focused on
breaking misconceptions about the legendary Civil
Rights activist, Rosa Parks, to a captivated audience this
past Wednesday.
A professor at Brooklyn College and author of the
critically acclaimed book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs.
Rosa Parks, Theoharis delved into Parks’ background
as a civil rights activist at Giant Eagle Auditorium on
March 25. Among her key points was how Parks’ famous
bus protest was not mere coincidence, but stemmed
from her years of fighting against racial injustice.
Theoharis’ dynamic and impassioned lecture painted
Parks in a way that broke the image of her as just a tired,
middle-aged woman who refused to get out of her seat.
Parks was described as “feisty,” and as continuously
asking others, “Why do you push us around?”
This rebellious spirit was evidenced by Parks’ history
in the Civil Rights Movement. As a child, she would sit
by her shotgun-wielding grandfather in the south who
protected their home against racial violence. As an adult,
Parks became interested in the movement, and a turning
point came when she met fellow activist and future
husband Raymond Parks in 1931, who was a lawyer in
the infamous Scottsboro case.
Throughout the 1940s, Parks took a more prominent
role in the fight against racial injustice. She joined her
local NAACP chapter, becoming its Grand Secretary,
and worked with other prominent Civil Rights leaders
such as E.D. Nixon in fighting for voter registration
and eliminating poll taxes. After years of her own
struggle, Parks voted for the first time in 1945. Parks
then continued to work with criminal justice issues,
particularly by finding legal defense for cases where
black men were being wrongfully accused of crimes and
cases where the law was unresponsive to white brutality.
However, Parks’ history is not without its hardship, a
feature overlooked by many. Due to her activism, she
was often banned from working and faced immense
economic problems. By the late 1940s, Parks had begun
to burn out. In fact, early in 1955 (the same year as her
famous bus protest), Parks stated that she believed the
movement was out of her hands, but was the future
of new generations. Yet, her perseverance and her
attendance at the Highlander School that summer would
rekindle her passion.
As Theoharis stated, it is this perseverance and also
Parks’ knowledge of the movement that make her a true
hero. Despite her hardships and her knowledge of the
racial violence often taken against black activists, Parks
continued to fight for civil rights. However, the reiterated
fable that we are all familiar with loses these details and
this agency — Parks’ action on the bus, though still
heroic, reduces her to being a hero by chance, not a hero
through her own virtues.
10 lecture
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03.30.15
Theoharis spoke about the myth surrounding Rosa Parks’s activism and how it hurts our understanding of the movement.
In fact, Theoharis dispelled several myths of the bus
story during her lecture. First, Parks was not the first
African American that refused to give up their seat on
a bus. Others, including Parks, had done so and had
been arrested in the past. Next, when Parks was asked
to move from her seat, she did not merely state that she
was tired after her job as a tailor. She understood the
consequences of her actions, and takes this injustice
as an opportunity to not consent to this treatment.
Theoharis stated that it was only after the insistence of
the bus driver that the police actually arrested her, and
she was later released from jail that night, shaken but
unharmed.
by Parks, would help propel civil rights leaders such as
Martin Luther King Jr. into the national movement.
So why is Parks remembered as such a heroic and
influential figure, if others had already conducted several
similar protests?
Most importantly, though, Theoharis’ talk opened up a
much needed dialogue in the humanities departments
here at Carnegie Mellon, a dialogue about the ways in
which historical narratives learned in high school affect
the way students learn about history in college. For a
school whose humanities are often overshadowed by
other departments, talking about the ramifications of the
way history is told is important in boosting the school’s
awareness of the direction of the humanities, and keeps
Dietrich on the cutting edge of such education.
One large factor of Parks’ legacy is her collaboration with
E.D. Nixon. Nixon, a prominent white lawyer, saw Parks
as a valuable test case. Parks had an “ideal image”: she
was “working class in economics” and “middle class in
demeanor”, making her relatable to other blacks. Most
importantly, Nixon knew Parks’ spirit was unbreakable.
Theoharis continued that although Parks’ legacy is often
left with her at the bus, she actually continued for the
remainder of her life. Parks helped organize the highly
intricate and methodically planned carpool system
which made the Montgomery boycott of the bus system
possible. This boycott, and other protests organized
Following her move to Detroit, Parks continued to face
economic hardships, but persevered, fighting for housing
issues, freedom for political prisoners, and accessible
education.
Theoharis’ lecture gave new insight on a legendary icon
and true American hero. However, Parks’ life shows
that with enough courage, perseverance, and faith, any
individual can dramatically change the socioeconomic
and political culture of our nation.
Dhruva Krishna | Junior Staffwriter
CMU Politics by Michelle Ma
[email protected]
michelledoeswhat.com
comics
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11
His First Time by Nehemiah Russell
[email protected]
12 comics
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03.30.15
nehemiahrus.tumblr.com
Sudoku Puzzle: Very Hard Difficulty
Maze Puzzle: Hard Difficulty
Sudoku courtesy of www.krazydad.com
Maze courtesy of www.krazydad.com
Fill all empty squares using numbers 1 to 9. No number may
be used in the same row or column more than once.
Start at the arrow on the bottom left corner and find your
way through the maze.
Solutions from March 23
Crossword
Soduku
Maze
puzzles
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03.30.15
13
Horoscopes
Cruel Pranks and Cool Jokes
aries
march 21–april 19
Marinate while you shower!
Remove the shower head. Insert chicken bouillon. Wait for
an unsuspecting victim.
taurus
We’re watching.
Stick googly eyes on every inanimate object.
gemini
Freshen up with cream cheese deodorant.
Take deodorant out of its container. Refill the container with
cream cheese.
cancer
Enjoy breakfast in the shower.
Fill the shower railings and soap holders with toasted bread.
april 20–may 20
may 21–june 21
june 22–july 22
leo
july 23–aug. 22
Love mixed treats?
Mix a bowl of Skittles, M&M’s, and Reese’s Pieces.
Crossword courtesy of BestCrosswords.com
virgo
aug. 23–sept. 22
libra
sept. 23–oct. 22
scorpio
oct. 23–nov. 21
sagittarius
nov. 22–dec. 21
capricorn
dec. 22–jan. 19
aquarius
jan. 20–feb. 18
pisces
feb. 19–march 20
Prepare for a water surprise.
Line a hallway with Styrofoam cups filled with water.
Need an extra sour apple?
Dip yellow onions into melted candy and wait for someone
to take a bite.
Clean your teeth with Oreos.
Replace the inside of Oreo cookies with white toothpaste.
Craving soy sauce?
Pour sprite in a coke bottle. Add soy sauce until it looks like
the original color.
Win your office wars.
Zip tie a can of Frebreze permanently open. Throw it and
run.
Looking to redecorate?
If you dip cotton balls in water, they’ll stick to anything on a
freezing night.
Become a mysterious caller.
Change all of your victim’s contacts to “It’s a Mystery.”
Maryyann Landlord | Comics Editor
14 horoscopes
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03.30.15
Across
1. Airline since 1948
5. Krazy ___
8. Narrow inlets
12. Hood-shaped anatomical part
14. Adriatic resort
15. Wight or Man
16. Of Thee ___
17. Image of a deity
18. First son of Adam and Eve
19. Wool-clippers
21. Morals
23. Zeta follower
24. You ___ here
25. Actress Ruby
26. Marsh plants
30. Former Russian rulers
32. Software buyers
33. Chew
37. Female horse
38. Actress Anouk
39. Gillette brand
40. Bonnet with a large brim
42. Finely ground meal of grain
43. Adlai’s running mate
44. Occur
45. Chart
48. Fleur-de-___
49. Atmosphere
50. Flowering
52. Penitentiary island
57. Tailless amphibian
58. Scraps
60. Wild Asian dog
61. ___ kleine Nachtmusik
62. Western pact
63. Satisfies
64. Corrida cries
65. Craving
66. Sunset direction
Down
1. Sponsorship
2. Whip
3. That’s ___!
4. Musical Horne
5. Young goats
6. “Much ___ About Nothing”, play by
Shakespeare
7. Put up with
8. Having wealth
9. Let me repeat...
10. Wonderland girl
11. Inward feeling
13. Concurs
14. Old Italian money
20. Aliens, for short
22. Actress Garr
24. Item having exchange value
26. Adds
27. Son of Rebekah
28. “Jurassic Park” actress
29. Diving bird
30. Domesticates
31. Skin of the upper part of the head
33. Floating bombs
34. At the apex of
35. Faithful
36. Acquire through work
38. White metallic element
41. Capital of Norway
42. Capacitance units
44. Sot’s sound
45. San ___, California
46. Bubbling
47. Flat surface
49. Furthermore
51. Lyric poems
52. Env. notation
53. Melt
54. Routine
55. Some are pale
56. Gusto
59. Actress Charlotte
Monday3/30/15
Saturday 4/4/15
Neither Here Nor There.
Porter Hall 100. 4:30 p.m.
The Center for the Arts in Society presents Neither Here Nor
There as part of their semesterly series of events. This event will
feature artist Rita Duffy, an artist from Northern Ireland who uses
her art as a means of commenting on or challenging culture
and politics. Her talk will discuss the concept of “Nothernness”
as a geographical and psychological idea, as well as the
concept of challenging boundaries. Admission is free.
Earl Sweatshirt.
Mr. Smalls Funhouse and Theatre. 8 p.m.
Los Angeles-based rapper Earl Sweatshirt will perform this
week alongside Remy Banks and Vince Staples. Sweatshirt
just released his most recent album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t
Go Outside on March 23, which is about the struggles of
young adults today. Tickets start at $25.
Thursday 4/2/15
Oblivion.
City Theatre Company. Through April 26.
A comedy from Carly Mensch, a writer from the television
show Weeds, the play Oblivion takes on the complex
relationship between parents and adolescents, and what it
means to grow up and be a family. Tickets start at $36.
alt-J.
Benedum Center. 8 p.m.
English indie rock band alt-J will visit Pittsburgh during its
North and South American tour on the heels of the release of
their most recent album, This Is All Yours. Tickets are sold out
but can still be bought from scalpers.
Varun Gadh.
Skibo Cafe. 7:30 p.m.
AB Skibo presents singer-songwriter and CMU first year
Varun Gadh. Dhruva Krishna and David Matvey will open for
him. This event is funded by your student activities fee.
Editor’s Note: Dhruva Krishna writes for The Tartan.
Anya Martin.
New Hazlett Theater. 8 p.m.
Martin along with the actors of the Hiawatha project will
perform JH: Mechanics of a Legend, a piece about the myth
of John Henry and how it remains culturally relevant today.
The show will be followed by a talkback with script advisor
Wendy Aarons and Samuel Black, African American historian
at the Heinz History Center. $20 in advance or $25 at the
door.
Ongoing
Sketch to Structure.
Carnegie Museum of Art. Through Aug. 17.
This exhibition in the Heinz Architectural Center explores
the process from an architect’s initial concept to client
presentation. Featuring a number of sketches by Lorcan
O’Herlihy and Richard Neutra as well as watercolors by
Steven Holl.
Classifieds
Change kids’ lives with KEYS AmeriCorps. Join
a team of over 90 members at 20 Pittsburgh
summer camps for one unforgettable summer.
Earn $3,241 throughout the summer and a
$1,493 education award upon completion. May
26 – Aug 12.
Visit www.keysservicecorps.org or email
[email protected].
invention of a faster plane, they all come to town at once.
Tickets are $39.75.
Compiled by Sarah Gutekunst | Operations Manager
Want your event here?
Email [email protected].
Some Day is Now: The Art of Corita Kent.
The Andy Warhol Museum. Through April 19.
Covering over 30 years of Corita Kent’s posters, murals, and
signature serigraphs, Some Day is Now is the first major
museum show to survey Kent’s career.
Boeing Boeing.
CLO Cabaret. Through April 26.
This Tony Award-winning production from the 1960s tells
the story of a Parisian player with three girlfriends, all flight
attendants. He gets himself into trouble when, with the
calender
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03.30.15
15
percussion extravaganza.
Last Wednesday evening, the College of Fine Arts hosted the
musical event Percussion Extravaganza at 6:30 p.m. in CFA’s Great
Hall. Audience members enjoyed the mellifluous sounds of Carnegie
Mellon students as they trickle in before the start of the event.
16 feature
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